Abstract
A new species of Xenosaurus in the X. tzacualtipantecus clade is described from the Sierra Madre Oriental of northern Puebla, Mexico. The new species differs from all of its congeners in possessing a unique combination of characters. The new species appears to be allopatric and fills in the geographic gap between the geographic distributions of X. tzacualtipantecus and the species in the newmanorum clade to the north and northwest and those of the species in the grandis and rackhami clades to the south and southeast. The new species occurs between approximately 880 m and 1470 m of elevation, and appears to be restricted to cloud forest, which has been replaced by coffee plantations in many areas. An updated key to the species of Xenosaurus is provided.
Highlights
In addition to the above species, a recent phylogenetic analysis of the genus Xenosaurus based on RADseq data (Nieto-Montes de Oca et al 2017) provided evidence that its diversity has been substantially underestimated, and that several species remain to be described
We describe the undescribed species from the Huehuetla region, Puebla, referred therein
Field work conducted in the Sierra Madre Oriental of Puebla during the last two decades by herpetologists at the Museo de Zoología Alfonso L
Summary
Lizards of the Middle American genus Xenosaurus Peters, 1861 occur from southwestern Tamaulipas and extreme southeastern Guerrero, on the Caribbean and Pacific versants of Mexico, respectively, south and east to Alta Verapaz, Guatemala (King and Thompson 1968; Smith and Iverson 1993; Ballinger et al 2000; Pérez-Ramos et al 2000; Nieto-Montes de Oca et al 2001; Canseco-Márquez 2005; Zamora-Abrego 2009; Nieto-Montes de Oca et al 2013, 2017). Twelve species of Xenosaurus have been described: X. grandis (Gray, 1856), X. rackhami Stuart, 1941, X. newmanorum Taylor, 1949, X. sanmartinensis Werler & Shannon, 1961, X. arboreus Lynch & Smith, 1965, X. agrenon King & Thompson, 1968, X. platyceps King & Thompson, 1968, X. rectocollaris Smith & Iverson, 1993, X. penai Pérez-Ramos, Saldaña de la Riva & Campbell, 2000, X. phalaroanthereon NietoMontes de Oca, Campbell & Flores-Villela, 2001, X. tzacualtipantecus Woolrich-Piña & Smith, 2012, and X. mendozai Nieto-Montes de Oca, García-Vázquez, Zúñiga-Vega & Schmidt-Ballardo, 2013. Because the number of described species of Xenosaurus has nearly doubled since the only key to its species was published (King and Thompson 1968), an updated key to the species in the genus is provided
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