A new species of spectacularly coloured flat lizard Platysaurus (Squamata: Cordylidae: Platysaurinae) from southern Africa

Martin J. Whiting; William R. Branch; Mitzy Pepper; J. Scott Keogh

doi:10.11646/zootaxa.3986.2.2

A new species of spectacularly coloured flat lizard Platysaurus (Squamata: Cordylidae: Platysaurinae) from southern Africa

Martin J. Whiting^*, William R. Branch, Mitzy Pepper, J. Scott Keogh

^*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

6 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

We describe a new species of flat lizard (Platysaurus attenboroughi sp. nov.) from the Richtersveld of the Northern Cape Province of South Africa and the Fish River Canyon region of southern Namibia. This species was formerly confused with P. capensis from the Kamiesberg region of Namaqualand, South Africa. Genetic analysis based on one mtDNA and two nDNA loci found Platysaurus attenboroughi sp. nov. to be genetically divergent from P. capensis and these species can also be differentiated by a number of scalation characters, coloration and their allopatric distributions. To stabilize the tax-onomy the type locality of Platysaurus capensis A. Smith 1844 is restricted to the Kamiesberg region, Namaqualand, Northern Cape Province, South Africa.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	173-192
Number of pages	20
Journal	Zootaxa
Volume	3986
Issue number	2
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.3986.2.2
Publication status	Published - 16 Jul 2015

Keywords

Lizard
New species
Platysaurus attenboroughi sp. nov.
Platysaurus capensis
Reptile
Southern Africa

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10.11646/zootaxa.3986.2.2

Cite this

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title = "A new species of spectacularly coloured flat lizard Platysaurus (Squamata: Cordylidae: Platysaurinae) from southern Africa",

abstract = "We describe a new species of flat lizard (Platysaurus attenboroughi sp. nov.) from the Richtersveld of the Northern Cape Province of South Africa and the Fish River Canyon region of southern Namibia. This species was formerly confused with P. capensis from the Kamiesberg region of Namaqualand, South Africa. Genetic analysis based on one mtDNA and two nDNA loci found Platysaurus attenboroughi sp. nov. to be genetically divergent from P. capensis and these species can also be differentiated by a number of scalation characters, coloration and their allopatric distributions. To stabilize the tax-onomy the type locality of Platysaurus capensis A. Smith 1844 is restricted to the Kamiesberg region, Namaqualand, Northern Cape Province, South Africa.",

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A new species of spectacularly coloured flat lizard Platysaurus (Squamata: Cordylidae: Platysaurinae) from southern Africa

Abstract

Keywords

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