Scientists have described a spectacular new species of shade lizard from the cloudforests of northwestern Ecuador.
Alopoglossus viridiceps, male, about 5.8 cm long. Image credit: Omar Torres-Carvajal.
Shade lizards – members of the lizard genus Alopoglossus – are widely distributed across tropical South America. They differ from most other lizards in having their tongues covered by folds instead of scale-like papillae.
These lizards are generally brown leaf-litter dwellers that live on both sides of the tropical Andes.
The unusually colored new species of Alopoglossus and increases to seven the number of species of this group of lizards, six of which live in Ecuador.
Dr Omar Torres-Carvajal from the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador’s Museo de Zoología QCAZ and his student Simón Lobos examined specimens of lizards in the collections of the Museo de Zoología QCAZ.
The specimens collected during the last five years, mostly at the Santa Lucía Cloud Forest Reserve in northwestern Ecuador, had a metallic greenish head and an orange belly. Other features like numbers of scales, as well as DNA evidence, indicated that these cloudforest lizards actually belong to a new species.
DNA data also suggest that its closest relative is the Western copper-lizard (Alopoglossus festae), a species that inhabits the Pacific lowlands of Colombia and Ecuador.
The newly discovered species has been named Alopoglossus viridiceps. The specific name, viridiceps, is an adjective derived from the Latin words ‘viridis’ and ‘ceps,’ which mean green and head, respectively. It refers to the distinctive bright green coloration of the dorsal and ventral aspects of the head of the new species.
“Simón Lobos and I have been working on shade lizards since 2010, and we have preliminary data suggesting that widespread Alopoglossus festae might actually represent several species new to science,” said Dr Torres-Carvajal, who is the lead author of a paper published in the journal ZooKeys.
“The same pattern of hidden diversity applies to the Amazonian species. Therefore, the diversity of shade lizards has been underestimated.”
“We are presently working on papers to share these discoveries with the scientific community,” Dr Torres-Carvajal said.
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Torres-Carvajal O, Lobos SE. 2014. A new species of Alopoglossus lizard (Squamata, Gymnophthalmidae) from the tropical Andes, with a molecular phylogeny of the genus. ZooKeys 410: 105–120; doi: 10.3897/zookeys.410.7401
