Hiding in the valley: a new national record of Ablepharus eremchenkoi, with rediscovery of Ablepharus alaicus in China: phylogeny, morphology and natural history notes

By

Liang, Tao
Liang, Qian-Ru
Ran, Jiang-Miao
An, Jing
Huang, Ya-Hui
Ding, Peng
Shi, Lei

Type

Article

Date of Publication

2024-4-10

Original Publication

Herpetozoa

Volume

37

Pages

95--105

Subjects

Ablepharine skink , Kazakhstan , Kyrgyzstan , voucher records , Xinjiang

Contributed by

Pensoft Publishers

Language

English

Published by

Sofia, Bulgaria Pensoft Publishers

Identifiers

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3897/herpetozoa.37.e116071

 

Abstract

The genus Ablepharus Lichtenstein, 1823 contains the common snake-eyed skinks, distributed from southern Europe and northern Africa to eastern Asia. Ablepharus alaicus Elpatjevsky, 1901 inhabits Central Asia and, according to historical literature, was once recorded in north-western China. However, there are no voucher records of this species from China. Some populations of a subspecies of A. alaicus have been elevated to new species, for example, A. eremchenkoi (Panfilov, 1999). However, no detailed studies have been conducted. In August and September 2023, we captured sixteen and fourteen skink specimens from Wuqia County and Qapqal Xibe Autonomous County, respectively, in Xinjiang, northwest China. Morphological and phylogenetic comparisons showed that the skinks collected from these two locations belong to A. eremchenkoi and A. alaicus, respectively. In this study, we confirmed the first record of A. eremchenkoi in China, rediscovered A. alaicus, reported voucher records for these two skinks and reviewed the taxonomic history of Ablepharus in Xinjiang, northwest China.