A new ancient lineage of ablepharine skinks (Sauria: Scincidae) from eastern Himalayas with notes on origin and systematics of the group

Zeeshan A Mirza; Andrey M Bragin; Harshal Bhosale; Gaurang G Gowande; Harshil Patel; Nikolay A Poyarkov

doi:10.7717/peerj.12800

A new ancient lineage of ablepharine skinks (Sauria: Scincidae) from eastern Himalayas with notes on origin and systematics of the group

PeerJ. 2022 Jan 18:10:e12800. doi: 10.7717/peerj.12800. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Zeeshan A Mirza¹, Andrey M Bragin², Harshal Bhosale³, Gaurang G Gowande^{4

5}, Harshil Patel^{6

7}, Nikolay A Poyarkov^{2

8}

Affiliations

¹ National Centre for Biological Sciences, Bangalore, Karnataka, India.
² Department of Vertebrate Zoology, Biological Faculty, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia.
³ Bombay Natural History Society, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India.
⁴ Abasaheb Garware College, Pune, Maharashtra, India.
⁵ Department of Biotechnology, Fergusson College, Pune, Maharasshtra, India.
⁶ Department of Biosciences, Veer Narmad South Gujarat University, Surat, Gujarat, India.
⁷ Voluntary Nature Conservancy, Vallabh Vidyanagar, Gujarat, India.
⁸ Joint Russian-Vietnamese Tropical Research and Technological Center, Hanoi, Nghia Do, Cau Giay, Vietnam.

Abstract

The Himalayas represent a renowned biodiversity hotspot and an important biogeographic realm that has influenced origin and diversification of multiple taxa. A recent herpetological investigation of the eastern Himalayas of the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh led to the discovery of a unique lineage of ablepharine skink, which is herein described as a new genus along with a new species. The findings are based an integrated taxonomic approach incorporating data from external morphology, microCT scans of the skull and molecular data. The molecular phylogeny of ablepharine skinks is also presented that suggests taxonomic amendments. Discovery of this unique lineage of skinks further highlights the biogeographic importance of the eastern Himalayas as a source for origin of several relic biota.

Keywords: Ablepharus; Asymblepharus; Herpetology; Himalblepharus; MicroCT; Molecular phylogeny; Reptiles; Systematics.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Animals
Biodiversity*
Biota
Lizards*
Phylogeny

Grants and funding

This work was supported by Singinawa Conservation Foundation to ZAM (SCF-2019-21) and Brihad Bharatiya Samaj to HSB (BBS-2019). The work of Andrey M Bragin and Nikolay A Poyarkov was carried out with financial support from the Russian Science Foundation (19-14-00050) to NAP: specimen collection, sequencing, and morphological analysis. Gaurang G Gowande was partially supported by the Rufford Small Grants for Nature Conservation (20097-1). The visits to museums would not have been possible without the help of an Infosys Travel Grant (NCBS-KVR-2019). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.