Abstract
Two new species of Parapharyngodon collected from the intestine of the Mexican boulder spiny lizard Sceloporus pyrocephalus are described. This study increases to 49 the number of valid species assigned to Parapharyngodon worldwide, 11 of them distributed in Mexico. Males of the two new species share the presence of four pairs of caudal papillae, an anterior echinate cloacal lip and the presence of lateral alae; however, both differ from each other in lateral alae extension and echinate cloacal anterior lip morphology. Females of both species have a prebulbar uterus and eggs shell punctuate with pores, characteristics shared with few other species of Parapharyngodon. Both new species differ from other congeneric species in the papillar arrangement, the anterior cloacal lip morphology, the lateral alae extension and total length/spicule ratio. A taxonomic key for the species of Parapharyngodon distributed in Mexico is provided.
Highlights
Mexico has a species-rich reptile fauna, with 864 species (8.7% of the worldwide total); 57% of them are endemic (Flores-Villela and García-Vázquez 2014)
Sceloporus pyrocephalus Cope is an oviparous endemic lizard to Mexico. It is associated with streams and rivers within tropical deciduous and semi-deciduous forest, and it is distributed from the Southwestern Pacific coast of Jalisco and Colima to Michoacán, Guerrero, South-western Mexico State, and Southern Morelos (Uetz and Hošek 2013)
Two species of Parapharyngodon have been described as parasites of phrynosomatid lizards: P. grismeri and P. iguanae in Petrosaurus repens Van Denburgh and Petrosaurus mearnsi Stejneger, respectively (Paredes-León et al 2008, Velarde-Aguilar et al 2015)
Summary
Mexico has a species-rich reptile fauna, with 864 species (8.7% of the worldwide total); 57% of them are endemic (Flores-Villela and García-Vázquez 2014). Sceloporus Wiegmann is a reptile genus distributed in the Americas; it inhabits a wide range of environments, and it is the most representative lizard taxon of the Mexican herpetofauna with 92 of 97 species that composed the genus, with the majority of them endemic (Flores-Villela 1993). Sceloporus pyrocephalus Cope is an oviparous endemic lizard to Mexico. It is associated with streams and rivers within tropical deciduous and semi-deciduous forest, and it is distributed from the Southwestern Pacific coast of Jalisco and Colima to Michoacán, Guerrero, South-western Mexico State, and Southern Morelos (Uetz and Hošek 2013). There are scarce studies on this phrynosomatid lizard; the majority of these are focused in taxonomy, conservation, and reproductive research (Ramírez-Bautista and Olvera-Becerril 2004, Calisi et al 2007, Leaché 2010)
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