×

TERRA TYPICA. Settlement Tengizbai, Altai Range. DISTRIBUTION. It occurs in the mountains of Tien Shan system and northern Pamir-Altai within the limits of Kyrgyzstan, Ferganskaya valley in Uzbekistan and northern Tajikistan. The record of this species in the extreme south-east of Kazakhstan (Terskei-Alatau) needs to be confirmed more precisely. CONSERVATION STATUS. The species does not require special conservation measures.

×

A new species of Eremias has been described from the Cholistan Desert of Pakistan. It constitutes the first record of the genus Eremias from the Oriental (Indian) region. The species has been named Eremias cholistanica, after the Cholistan Desert of Pakistan. This striped desert lacerta is not only different from all its congeners in several morphological characteristics but has been collected from an area distant from the previous known range of Eremias.

×

The Cadastre of the Genetical Fund is the of cial directory on biodiversity – the annotated check-list of living creatures registered on the territory of the country, re ecting the current state of the biotic inventory. The present volume IV is devoted to the chordates and contains general distributional data about representatives of ve classes of vertebrate animals: ray- nned shes (Actinopterygii), amphibians (Amphibia), reptiles (Reptilia), birds (Aves), and mammals (Mammalia). This volume completes the national faunal inventory (the check-list of all invertebrate animals is presented in volumes II and III). In total, there are listed 602 species (with all local subspecies) represents 325 genera belongs to 119 families. There are also included 14 species doubtfully recorded in Kyrgyzstan, and 36 species names are expunged from faunal list. Each taxon name is supplied with the main synonymy, most accepted Russian, Kyrgyz, and English names. Data on current distribution within Kyrgyzstan and endemicity level are provided for each species (subspecies), as well as main references. The guide book also contains 74 color photographs in the annex. It is destined for experts in ecology, zoologists, specialists and employers of the institutions for the management of the natural resources, nature conservation and biological education.

×

A reptile catalogue of the Zoological Museum, Stavropol State University, is presented. 1,019 specimens of 88 species collected within the territories of Russian Federation, Ukraine, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and some other areas are listed. The history of the Museum and the formation of its collection are given.

×

The complete mitochondrial genome (mitogenome) of the Kyrghyz racerunner (Eremias nikoskii Bedriaga, 1905) from Kyrgyzstan was determined for the first time by next-generation sequencing. The mitogenome was 20,840 bp in length and comprised the standard set of 13 protein-coding genes (PCGs), 2 ribosomal RNA genes, 22 transfer RNA genes, and a control region. The 13 concatenated PCGs were used to implement Bayesian phylogenetic analyses together with some congeners and three representative lacertids retrieved from GenBank. The monophyly of both Eremias and its viviparous group was recovered in the Bayesian phylogenetic tree, while the subgenus Pareremias was paraphyletic with respect to E. nikoskii. The mitogenome of E. nikoskii will faciliate the research on species delimitation, molecular evolution, and phylogenetic inference in the racerunner lizards.

×

Aim Body size is instrumental in influencing animal physiology, morphology, ecology and evolution, as well as extinction risk. I examine several hypotheses regarding the influence of body size on lizard evolution and extinction risk, assessing whether body size influences, or is influenced by, species richness, herbivory, island dwelling and extinction risk. Location World-wide. Methods I used literature data and measurements of museum and live specimens to estimate lizard body size distributions. Results I obtained body size data for 99% of the world`s lizard species. The body size–frequency distribution is highly modal and right skewed and similar distributions characterize most lizard families and lizard assemblages across biogeographical realms. There is a strong negative correlation between mean body size within families and species richness. Herbivorous lizards are larger than omnivorous and carnivorous ones, and aquatic lizards are larger than non-aquatic species. Diurnal activity is associated with small body size. Insular lizards tend towards both extremes of the size spectrum. Extinction risk increases with body size of species for which risk has been assessed. Main conclusions Small size seems to promote fast diversification of disparate body plans. The absence of mammalian predators allows insular lizards to attain larger body sizes by means of release from predation and allows them to evolve into the top predator niche. Island living also promotes a high frequency of herbivory, which is also associated with large size. Aquatic and nocturnal lizards probably evolve large size because of thermal constraints. The association between large size and high extinction risk, however, probably reflects a bias in the species in which risk has been studied.

×

We provide an integrative analysis of the diversity of the E. multiocellata—E. przewalskii species complex in Central and Middle Asia using morphological and molecular (COI DNA-barcoding) data. We report preliminary data on mtDNA variation within this group and clarify the taxonomic status and distribution of the members of the species complex. We also provide a description of a new Eremias species from Eastern Kazakhstan and western Mongolia, where it occurs in sympatry with E. multiocellata sensu stricto, from which it can be clearly differentiated using both morphological and molecular characters. The new species, described as Eremias dzungarica sp. nov., is assigned to the subgenus Pareremias on the basis of the following features: subocular not reaching mouth edge; one frontonasal; two supraoculars; the row of small granular scales between supraoculars and frontal with frontoparietals absent; distance between the femoral pore rows being wide; femoral pore rows not reaching knee-joint; coloration pattern with light colored ocelli with black edging. The new species can be distinguished from its congeners on the basis of the following morphological attributes: a mediumsized lacertid lizard, maximum snout-vent length (SVL) = 64.5 mm, tail being ca. 1.5 times longer than body length (SVL), hindlimbs relatively long (hindlimb length to SVL ratio 0.46); subocular scale not reaching mouth edge, in touch with 6–8 supralabials; males with bright coloration consisting of 2–3 dorsolateral rows of light-colored ocelli with thick black edging; the ventral row of ocelli in life is greenish to bluish; dorsal pattern consisting of black irregular blotches along the middorsal line. We also report on the high genetic and morphological diversity of E. multiocellata in Mongolia and China, synonymize E. m. bannikowi with the nominative form E. m. multiocellata, discuss variation within E. przewalskii, synonymize E. p. tuvensis with the nominative form E. przewalskii, provide new data on E. cf. reticulata and E. m. tsaganbogdensis, confirm validity and clarify distribution ranges of E. stummeri, E. szczerbaki and E. yarkandensis and discuss further progress on taxonomic studies of the E. multiocellata—E. przewalskii species complex.

×

A new species of the lacertid genus and subgenus Eremias is described based on material collected by the senior author from 150 km northeast of Shiraz, Fars province, south-central Iran at about 1800 m elevation. It differs from all other Iranian species of the typical subgenus (E. persica, E strauchi, E velox and E. lalezharica) in that it has a very distinctive and unique color pattern, unmistakable in this character the wide dorsolateral stripe is uniformly black without light spots and there is no ocelli on the upper surface of limbs; the third pair of submaxillary shields are separated by 4 granular scales; and the tympanic shield is rudimentary and almost absent. The new species is sympatric with Eremias persica and apparently restricted in distribution to the steppes and open plains in the northern regions of Fars province south-central Iran.

×

This book shows a comprehensive picture of the reptiles, excluding snakes, living in Europe, North Africa, Middle and Near East and Central Asia. The bulk of the book is an annotated checklist and a distributional atlas of approx 500 species of lizards, crocodiles, turtles and terrapins, and amphisbaenians, living in the Western Palearctic. Information on distribution, subspecies, chorotype and main references are provided for each species, as well as 226 colour maps showing the global distribution of the species on a grid of one degree. For each species map the bibliographic and original sources (more than 850 sources are listed) are indicated. A further 83 maps show the distribution of all genera and main species groups of Palearctic reptiles. Beside the checklist and the atlas, in some additional chapters the following arguments are treated: Materials and methods; status of knowledge on the Palearctic fauna; composition of the Western Palearctic reptile fauna (including a statement on biodiversity and species richness); descriptive biogeography (including a discussion on the Palearctic region boundaries based on reptile distribution and the herpeto-geographic sectors of the Western Palearctic); conservation status. A list of more than 730 references quoted in the text and high quality colour plates including photos of the most of the supraspecific taxa living in the study area completes the book.

×

Comparative studies on mitochondrial genomes (mitogenomes) as well as the structure and evolution of the mitochondrial control region are few in the Lacertidae family. Here, the complete mitogenomes of five individuals of Eremias scripta (2 individuals), Eremias nikolskii, Eremias szczerbaki, and Eremias yarkandensis were determined using next-generation sequencing and were compared with other lacertids available in GenBank. The circular mitogenomes comprised the standard set of 13 protein-coding genes (PCGs), 22 transfer RNA genes, 2 ribosomal RNA genes and a long non-coding control region (CR). The extent of purifying selection was less pronounced for the COIII and ND2 genes in comparison with the rest of the PCGs. The codons encoding Leucine (CUN), Threonine, and Isolecucine were the three most frequently present. The secondary structure of rRNA of Lacertidae (herein, E. scripta KZL15 as an example) comprised four domains and 28 helices for 12S rRNA, with six domains and 50 helices for 16S rRNA. Five types and twenty-one subtypes of CR in Lacertidae were described by following the criteria of the presence and position of tandem repeats (TR), termination-associated sequence 1 (TAS1), termination-associated sequence 2 (TAS2), conserved sequence block 1 (CBS1), conserved sequence block 2 (CSB2), and conserved sequence block 3 (CSB3). The compositions of conserved structural elements in four genera, Acanthodactylus, Darevskia, Eremias, and Takydromus, were further explored in detail. The base composition of TAS2 – TATACATTAT in Lacertidae was updated. In addition, the motif “TAGCGGCTTTTTTG” of tandem repeats in Eremias and the motif ”GCGGCTT” in Takydromus were presented. Nucleotide lengths between CSB2 and CSB3 remained 35 bp in Eremias and Darevskia. The phylogenetic analyses of Lacertidae recovered the higher-level relationships among the three subfamilies and corroborated a hard polytomy in the Lacertinae phylogeny. The phylogenetic position of E. nikolskii challenged the monophyly of the subgenus Pareremias within Eremias. Some mismatches between the types of CR and their phylogeny demonstrated the complicated evolutionary signals of CR such as convergent evolution. These findings will promote research on the structure and evolution of the CR and highlight the need for more mitogenomes in Lacertidae.

×

An analysis of literature, reports, collections and the authors` data on the distri- bution of amphibians and reptiles in the Western Tian Shan (Uzbekistan) has been made. The list consists of nineteen reptile and two amphibian species. Distribution maps of the records are presented. Inhabiting in this territory of some more species is expected.

×

The karyotype of Eremias przewalskii from Minqin county,Gansu province was examined using medulla cells and the colchicines-hypotonic air dry technique.Result showed that the karyotype formula of E.przewalskii is 2n=38=36I+2m with NF=38,belonging to type of Eremias argus,consistent with the karyotypes of genus Eremias and family Lacertidae. On the basis of reviewing the reported karyological data of Eremias, the evolution of karyotypes in this genus is discussed.