An unknown collection of lizards from Afghanistan

By

Jablonski, Daniel, 1987-
Urosevic, Aleksandar
Andjelkovic, Marko
Dzukic, Georg

Type

Article

Date of Publication

2019

Original Publication

ZooKeys

Volume

843

Pages

129-147

Subjects

Biogeography , Bufotes , Central Asia , Faunistics , historical data , museum collection , new records , Reptilia , Squamata

Contributed by

Pensoft Publishers

Language

English

Published by

Sofia, Bulgaria Pensoft Publishers

Identifiers

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.843.29420

 

Abstract

Afghanistan is a herpetologically understudied country with few published papers since the end of “Afghanistan’s Golden Age” from the 1930s to the 1970s. Although a detailed checklist of the herpetofauna of the country, based on exploration of herpetodiversity using biodiversity archives, has been published recently, there still exist additional historical data that have not been considered. This is the case for a so far unknown collection of lizards from Afghanistan deposited in the herpetological collection of the Institute for Biological Research “Siniša Stanković at the University of Belgrade, Belgrade, Serbia. The material comes from field research conducted in 1972 and contains 27 specimens in seven lizard genera representing four families (Agamidae, Gekkonidae, Lacertidae, Scincidae). This historical collection was examined and basic morphometric data, field data, and photographs are provided, comparing the distributional data with published datasets. Updated species distribution maps reveal new locality or province records and an important range extension for Eurylepis taeniolata Blyth, 1854 which represents the northernmost record for this species in Afghanistan. In addition, one further distribution record for the Bufotes viridis (Laurenti, 1768) complex from the same research trip is noted.