Abstract
We describe a new species of Cyrtodactylus on the basis of two specimens collected from Ta Kou Nature Reserve, Binh Thuan Province, southern Vietnam. Cyrtodactylus chungi sp. nov. is distinguished from the remaining Indochinese bent-toed geckos by a combination of the following characters: relatively small body size (SVL up to 68.5 mm); a continuous neckband; 5 or 6 irregular transverse dorsal bands; 11 or 12 bands on original tail; keeled tubercles present on dorsum, posterior limbs and tail; 17 or 18 irregular dorsal tubercle rows; 30 or 31 ventral scale rows; ventrolateral skin folds indistinct; an angular series of seven precloacal pores in male and six pitted, enlarged precloacal scales in female, each series separated by a diastema of undifferentiated scales from 4–6 enlarged, poreless femoral scales; median subcaudals slightly enlarged; 17–20 subdigital lamellae under the fourth toe. Based on molecular analyses of the fragment of mitochondrial gene cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (COI), the new species is recovered as the sister taxon to Cyrtodactylus cattienensis s. str. with a genetic divergence of more than 9%. In phylogenetic analyses, the new species is recovered as a member of the Cyrtodactylus irregularis species group.
Highlights
The gekkonid genus Cyrtodactylus Gray, 1827 is by far the most speciose with many new species being described every year (Grismer et al 2018; Murdoch et al 2019)
This species was supported as the sister species to C. sangi Pauwels, Nazarov, Bobrov & Poyarkov, 2018 + C. cattienensis Geissler, Nazarov, Orlov, Böhme, Phung, Nguyen & Ziegler, 2009 in our Bayesian inference (BI) and maximum likelihood (ML) analyses (Fig. 2), but it was shown as the basal taxon of a large clade, including C. kingsadai Ziegler, Phung, Le & Nguyen, 2013, C. taynguyenensis Nguyen, Le, Tran, Orlov, Lathrop Macculoch, Le, Jin, Nguyen, Nguyen, Hoang, Che, Murphy & Zhang, 2013, C. takouensis Ngo & Bauer, 2008 among others with high statistical values from both BI and ML in Pauwels et al
The phylogenetic results show that the new species from Ta Kou Mountain, Binh Dinh Province was recovered as the sister taxon to C. cattienensis s. str. with a high statistical support in all analyses (Fig. 2)
Summary
The gekkonid genus Cyrtodactylus Gray, 1827 is by far the most speciose with many new species being described every year (Grismer et al 2018; Murdoch et al 2019). Vietnam has been a hotspot of new discoveries with 43 recorded species (Nazarov et al 2012; Luu et al 2017; Ostrowski et al 2020; Uetz et al 2020). Irregularis was described by Smith (1921a) from an open pine forest at Camly in the Langbian Plateau, Vietnam. Nguyen et al 2017; Pauwels et al 2018; Ostrowski et al 2020; Uetz et al 2020). Neang et al (2020) described C. phnomchiensis, the only member of the C. irregularis complex, which occurs west of the Mekong River in Kampong Thom Province, Cambodia
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