A New Species of Night Lizard of the Genus Lepidophyma (Xantusiidae) from Southern Mexico

Abstract

Here, we describe a new species of the genus Lepidophyma (Xantusiidae) from the Veracruzan biotic province of western Chiapas and adjacent Tabasco. The new species was discovered in a phylogenetic study performed by previous workers, who found that this species was the sister taxon to a clade composed of Lepidophyma lipetzi as the sister taxon to Lepidophyma reticulatum and Lepidophyma flavimaculatum. However, the new species is morphologically most similar to L. flavimaculatum, a widely distributed taxon with which the new species was previously confused. The new species inhabits tropical deciduous and tropical evergreen forest, montane cloud forest, and anthropic environments such as pasture–tropical forest borders and agroecosystems between 70 and 1100 m of elevation. The new species increases the number of species described in the genus to 22.