Agamura kermanensis Yousefkhani & Aliabadian & Rastegar-Pouyani & Darvish & Shafiei & Sehhatisabet 2018, sp. nov.
Creators: name: Yousefkhani, Seyyed Saeed Hosseinian
name: Aliabadian, Mansour
name: Rastegar-Pouyani, Eskandar
name: Darvish, Jamshid
name: Shafiei, Soheila
name: Sehhatisabet, Mohammad Ebrahim
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2018
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Chordata
Reptilia
Squamata
Gekkonidae
Agamura
Agamura kermanensis

description: Agamura kermanensis sp. nov.
Holotype. ZMSBUK 712 (ERP 6133), adult male, from Saadi Mountain, Kerman Province, Iran at 30°17ʹN, 56°41ʹE and 2035 m elevation, collected on 16 September 2016 by Soheila Shafiei.
Paratypes. ZMSBUK 713 (ERP 6135), adult male, collected at the same locality as the holotype; ZMSBUK 714 (ERP 6136), adult female, collected from Sirjan, Kerman Province, Iran (29°35ʹ N, 55°58ʹ E, 1911 m elevation); ZMSBUK 715 (ERP 6139) subadult female, collected from Faryab, Kerman Province, Iran (28°10ʹ N, 57°14ʹE, 1870 m elevation).
Etymology. The name kermanensis is derived from the distribution area of the species in Kerman Province.
Differential diagnosis. Agamura kermanensis sp. nov. (Fig. 2) is a large spider gecko with maximum snoutvent length 67 mm. The new taxon is distinguished from other species of the genus Agamura by these characters: A. kermanensis sp. nov. differs from A. persica by having keeled tubercles, transverse ventral scales numbering lower than 32, and the number of scales between tubercles 3 or greater; it differs from A. cruralis by having more than 12 supralabials and fewer than 51 scales from postmental to vent. Background color of the dorsum differs among the species: A. persica and A. kermanensis sp. nov. are light brown; A. cruralis is dark brown (Fig. 3). Scales under the tail are homogenous in both A. persica and A. cruralis (not divided), but A. kermanensis sp. nov. has alternating divided and undivided subcaudals (Fig. 4).
Description of holotype (ZMSBUK 712). A medium sized spider gecko of SVL 63.7 mm and tail 54 mm in length. Large postmental scales are arranged between the mental and gular scales. Supralabials 16; infralabials 12; three nasal scales in contact with the rostrum and first supralabial scale; rostral scale divided. Tubercles are sharply distinguished from surrounding scales; one row of scales under the fingers and toes; two precloacal pores; tail segmented, each segment comprising five whorls of scales; distalmost whorl with larger scales; subcaudal scales heterogenous and comprising alternating divided and undivided scales. Dorsal color is light brown with a series of five transverse dark brown bands from the occiput to the pelvic region (Fig. 2). There are nine bands on the dorsal surface of the tail.
Paratype variation Female paratypes do not have any precloacal pores, but the male paratype has two precloacal pores. The coloration of the paratypes differs, with both females having a darker background color than the male. Several scale counts in the male specimen show noteworthy differences from females, such as number of scales in widest part of abdomen and number of interorbital scales.
Remarks. The newly described species was collected from the southern and central part of Kerman Province at the border of the Zagros Mountains. The habitat of the new species is characterized by xeric climate, with the ground covered with small rocks (Fig. 5) and scattered small shrubs. Artiplex, a plant species with a height of approximately 1 m, was sparsely distributed in the habitat, whereas Artemisia was common. As we found Agamura kermanensis sp. nov. in southern Kerman, it can be assumed that the species’ distribution is limited to the southern part of Mount Hazar, and restricted to the south and east by the Jazmourian Depression. The other two species of Agamura (A. persica and A. cruralis) have wide distributional ranges in the Central Plateau and eastern Iran, but the new species is known only from Kerman Province.
description: Published as part of Yousefkhani, Seyyed Saeed Hosseinian, Aliabadian, Mansour, Rastegar-Pouyani, Eskandar, Darvish, Jamshid, Shafiei, Soheila & Sehhatisabet, Mohammad Ebrahim, 2018, Description of a new species of the genus Agamura Blanford, 1874 (Squamata: Gekkonidae) from southern Iran, pp. 325-331 in Zootaxa 4457 (2) on pages 326-330, DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.4457.2.8, http://zenodo.org/record/1457800