Acanthodactylus opheodurus Arnold, 1980 in the Levant revisited, and the striped patterns of Levantine Acanthodactylus

Abstract

The distribution of the Arabian desert lizard Acanthodactylus opheodurus Arnold, 1980 in the Levant is re-examined. West of Jordan it is almost limited to the ‘Arava Valley, absent from most of the Negev and from Sinai. This correction of an earlier report derives from re-identification of specimens, relying on the colour pattern difference from the syntopic sibling A. boskianus asper (Audouin, 1829). The vertebral dark stripe is simple in A. opheodurus but forked in A. boskianus. The vertebral stripe is forked but light-colored in two geographically adjacent related taxa, A. b. boskianus (Daudin, 1802) of northern Egypt and A. schreiberi syriacus Boettger, 1878 of coastal Israel.