Laudakia caucasia ( Eichwald, 1831 )

Šmíd, Jiří, Moravec, Jiří, Kodym, Petr, Kratochvíl, Lukáš, Yousefkhani, Seyyed Saeed Hosseinian, Rastegar-Pouyani, Eskandar & Frynta, Daniel, 2014, Annotated checklist and distribution of the lizards of Iran, Zootaxa 3855 (1), pp. 1-97 : 8

Laudakia caucasia ( Eichwald, 1831)

TYPE. Not located ( Baig et al. 2012).

TYPE LOCALITY. Restricted to Baku, Azerbaijan by Anderson (1999); originally Tiflisium [= Tbilisi, Georgia] and Bacuam [= Baku] ( Eichwald 1831).

DISTRIBUTION. From E Anatolia and Transcaucasia through N Iran to Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Pakistan.

DISTRIBUTION IN IRAN. Fig. 7 . The Alborz and Kopet Dagh ranges. The range extends to the south along the inner Zagros up to Fars Prov. and south along the Afghan border to northernmost Sistan and Baluchistan Prov .

HABITAT. Mountainous and upland areas up to 4000 m covered by xerophytes and other herbaceous vegetation, associated with rocky outcrops, scree and clay slopes, large boulders in river beds, stony fences and walls. Found at low elevations by the Caspian Sea as well ( Anderson 1999).

REMARKS. The uplifting in the Lesser Caucasus and Alborz Mountains which took place 2–3 million years ago (Mya) separated the Caucasian and more eastern (E Alborz, Kopet Dagh) populations ( Macey et al. 1998, 2000a). REFERENCES. Ananjeva & Orlova (1979); Anderson (1999); Rastegar-Pouyani & Nilson (2002); Cheatsazan et al. (2006); Rastegar-Pouyani & Torki (2007); Baig et al. (2012); Dezfoulian et al. (2012); Hosseinian Yousefkhani et al. (2013a).

Figures

FIGURES 2–7. 2. Provinces of Iran with their capitals. Names of provinces are in bold, capitals in plain. 3. Major geographic features of Iran and neighbouring countries. 4. Geographic distribution of all presence records assembled for this work. 5. All records mapped on a 0.25° × 0.25° grid. 6. Calotes versicolor. 7. Laudakia caucasia.