Hemipenial morphology of whiptail lizards Glaucomastix abaetensis and Glaucomastix littoralis , with comments on the genus Ameivula (Teiidae: Teiinae).

Abstract

Hemipenes are important structures for the systematics of Squamata, and may assist in the diagnosis of closely related taxa. Only one of the species of Glaucomastix (G. venetacauda) had its hemipenial morphology described in literature so far. Here we analyze and describe for the first time the hemipenes of seven specimens of G. abaetensis and 20 specimens of G. littoralis from the reptile collection of Museu Nacional, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro. In both species the hemipenes are bilobed with a forked sulcus spermaticus in a centripetal orientation and present laminar ornamentations on the hemipenial body and paired awns on the apical region of the lobes. The two species differed from each other only in the modal number of proximal laminae. The main differences in hemipenial morphology between Glaucomastix and its sister genus Ameivula are the presence of laminae in the hemipenial body (absent in Ameivula) and the absence of digitiform papillae on the apical lobular region (present in Ameivula). We expect that our data can be used as an additional tool to diagnose species within the genus Glaucomastix/Ameivula.