Abstract
A new species of the lizard genus Stenocercus Duméril & Bibron, 1837 is described based on six specimens from Serra da Canastra, Minas Gerais, southeastern Brazil. Similar to S.tricristatus (Duméril, 1851), S.dumerilii (Steindachner, 1867), S.quinarius Nogueira & Rodrigues, 2006, and S.squarrosus Nogueira & Rodrigues, 2006, the new species has a pyramidal head and an enlarged, dorsally projected post-supraciliary scale, like a small horn. It is most similar to S.tricristatus, from which it differs in having a more elongated head in ventral view; a larger number of scales around midbody; a distinctly enlarged, smooth preauricular scale; and probably a larger body size. Moreover, the new species has distinctly keeled scales, with phylloid and mucronate dorsals; no enlarged supraoculars; no neck folds; a vertebral, and a pair of dorsolateral and (weak) lateral crests. A redescription of S.tricristatus is presented for comparison with the new species.
Highlights
The enigmatic Stenocercus tricristatus was originally described by A
Torres-Carvajal 2007b, in a phylogeny of the genus based on molecular and morphological characters, recovered S. dumerilii and S. tricristatus as sister taxa, but S. quinarius and S. squarrosus were not included in the analysis
Teixeira et al (2016) constructed a new molecular phylogeny based on the same mitochondrial genes studied by Torres-Carvajal (2007b), where they included S. dumerilii, S. quinarius, S. squarrosus and S. canastra sp. nov
Summary
The enigmatic Stenocercus tricristatus was originally described by A. Genus and species were based on a single specimen from “Brésil”, collected by M. Ophryoessoides dumerilii Steindachner, 1867 was likewise described on the basis of a single specimen from Pará, northern Brazil, but Etheridge (in Peters and Donoso-Barros 1970) referred it as a synonym of O. tricristatus. The former taxon remained poorly known until Cunha (1981) published a study based on several specimens from eastern Pará. The specimens from Serra da Canastra are most similar to S. tricristatus, they show some significant differences and represent clearly a distinct species, described here. In order to facilitate comparisons, we present a redescription of the holotype of S. tricristatus
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