Acratosaura spinosa Rodrigues, Cassimiro, Freitas & Silva, 2009, sp. nov.
Creators: name: Rodrigues, Miguel Trefaut
name: Cassimiro, José
name: Freitas, Marco Antonio De
name: Silva, Thaís Figueiredo Santos
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2009
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Chordata
Reptilia
Squamata
Gymnophthalmidae
Acratosaura
Acratosaura spinosa

description: Acratosaura spinosa sp. nov.
(Figs. 1, 2 A, 3, 4, 5A)
Holotype: MZUSP 98088, an adult male obtained at 1,250 m at Fazenda Caraíbas (13º06'59"S 41º22'58"W), Serra do Sincorá, Espinhaço range, district of Cascavel, municipality of Mucugê, state of Bahia, Brazil, collected by Marco Antonio de Freitas and Thaís Figueiredo Santos Silva on 8 December 2005, field number MTR 13999.
Paratype: MZUSP 98188, a female obtained at 997 m at Mucugê (13°01'38"S, 41°21'04"W), state of Bahia, Brazil, collected by José Cassimiro on 11 March 2005, field number JC 1211.
Etymology: the specific epithet is given in reference to the spinose aspect of the body scales.
Diagnosis: a gymnophthalmid with ear openings and eyelids, and slender pentadactyl limbs lacking the claw on the first toe. Frontonasal single; prefrontals, frontoparietals, parietals, interparietals, and occipitals present. Parietals longer than wide. Collar fold absent. Three pairs of genials; three supraoculars. Dorsal scales in 28–31 rows, strongly keeled, lanceolate, imbricate. Ventrals smooth, in four regular longitudinal and 17–18 transverse rows; external rows wider than long, midventral rows longer than wide. Scales around body 28–30; 14 and 19–20 infradigital lamellae under finger IV and toe IV respectively. Male with a continuous series of 13 total very conspicuous pores without gap between preanal and femoral (Fig. 3); pores absent in female.
Description of the holotype (Fig. 1, 2 A, 3, 4, 5A): rostral broad, wider than high, contacting first supralabial, nasal and frontonasal. Frontonasal heptagonal, twice as wide as long, contacting rostral, nasal, loreal and prefrontals. Prefrontals hexagonal, as wide as long, in broad contact at midline. Frontal hexagonal, with almost parallel lateral margins, twice as long as wide, anteriorly indenting the prefrontal and posteriorly the frontoparietal sutures. Frontoparietals pentagonal, slightly larger than prefrontals, in broad contact, strongly indented by the interparietal. Interparietal longer than wide, longer and narrower than frontal, as long as and narrower than parietals. Parietals heptagonal, bordered laterally by three temporal scales, anteriorly by the third supraocular and frontoparietal, medially by the interparietal, and posteriorly by an occipital. Two pairs of distinctively enlarged occipitals separated at midline by a smaller scale. Three supraoculars, first the smallest, second the largest and in broad contact with frontal, third smaller, in broad contact with frontoparietal. Nasal above first supralabial, large, longer than high, with the nostril in the middle lower part of the scale, indenting the suture with the labial. Loreal posterior to nasal, diagonally oriented; contacting posteriorly first supraocular, first superciliary, preocular, and frenocular. Frenocular below preocular, followed posteriorly by a series of four suboculars, the first with the same approximate size of frenocular, second and third longer and narrower. Six supralabials, third and fourth under the eye, fifth the highest and contacting three smaller scales following posteriorly the subocular series. An elongate scale following sixth supralabial contacts the granules surrounding anterior margin of ear. Three superciliaries, first largest, wider anteriorly, longer than first supraocular, contacting preocular, loreal, first and second supraoculars, second superciliary and upper eyelid. Third superciliary followed by a smaller, higher than wide scale which contacts its posterior part, third supraocular and a small postocular. Central part of eyelid with a semitransparent undivided disc surrounded by small and slightly pigmented granular smooth scales. Lower eyelid with twelve strongly pigmented palpebrals. Temporal region with juxtaposed scales, irregular in size and shape; posterior ones largest, longitudinally striated. Ear opening surrounded by a series of juxtaposed granules, those from anterior margin elongate; external auditory meatus large, tympanum distinct, subovoid, recessed. Lateral surface of neck with keeled, imbricate scales which mostly are longer than wide. Except for striated temporals, all head scales smooth and juxtaposed with scattered sensorial organs.
Mental broad, wider than high. Postmental heptagonal, wider than long. Three pairs of genials, all in contact with infralabials and at midline; first smallest, third largest. An enlarged pair of symmetric flat and chevron-like scutes follows third pair of genials near the midline. Six infralabials, third the largest. Gulars smooth, imbricate, rounded posteriorly, in eight transverse rows; those from first two rows smaller with the same approximate size, posterior rows with enlarged scales, wider than long, the two central ones wider. Gulars followed by a distinct interbrachial region with seven much larger and elongate scales, about twice as long as gulars; central intrabrachial triangular (Fig. 4). Collar fold absent.
Dorsal scales imbricate, strongly keeled and arranged in regular transverse rows; anterior ones wider, becoming progressively lanceolate, mucronate, more strongly keeled, tricarinate. Twenty eight transverse rows between interparietal and the posterior level of hind limbs. Lateral scales identical to dorsals except those closer to ventrals that are larger and scales of paraventral row that are smooth. Scales near the arm insertion smaller, almost granular. A distinctive area with granular scales surrounds the area of arm insertion. Twenty eight scales around midbody. Ventral scales smooth, imbricate, rounded posteriorly; 17 transverse rows from interbrachials (excluded) to preanals. Four longitudinal rows of ventrals, external ones wider than long, central ones longer than wide. Six scales in precloacal region, central and paramedials the largest. Total pores 13, continuous, with no gap between femoral and preanal ones.
Scales of tail identical to the dorsals at midbody, keeled, lanceolate, strongly imbricate, except those from ventral part of base of tail which are slightly larger and smooth, but become gradually identical to other scales around tail towards the extremity.
Fore limbs with large, smooth and imbricate scales; those on ventral part of brachium much smaller. Anterior and ventral parts of hind limbs with irregularly large, smooth and imbricate scales, identical to the correspondent parts of fore limbs. Posterior part of thighs with granular, juxtaposed scales; larger, imbricate and keeled scales on dorsal part of tibia. Carpal and tarsal scales large, imbricate with some striated scales on tarsus; supradigital lamellae smooth, imbricate. Palmar and plantar surfaces with smooth, small granules; infradigital lamellae single, 14 on Finger IV and 19 on Toe IV. Toes and fingers, except for Finger I, clawed, and respectively having the following relative sizes: 1 <2 = 5 <3 <4 and, 1 <2 <5 <3 <4.
Dorsal surfaces of body, flanks and tail and lateral part of tail dark brown to black with a series of longitudinal and transversely arranged yellow round spots about one scale size. Irregularly distributed darker punctuation smaller than one fourth of the scale size. Head light brown dorsally with scattered dark brown marks irregular in size and shape. Labials cream yellowish with wide irregular vertical dark bars on central part of scales. Ventral parts of head, body and tail creamy yellow with a series of irregular dark blotches. Regenerated part of tail uniform dark brown. Limbs dark brown irregularly mottled with yellow.
Measurements of the holotype: snout-vent length: 53 mm; tail length (regenerated): 75 mm.
Variation: the paratype and only other specimen known is a female 53 mm SVL, tail length 65 mm (regenerated) with 31 transverse dorsal scale rows, 18 transverse ventral rows, 30 scales around midbody, 14 and 20 subdigital lamellae respectively under the fourth finger and fourth toe, 8 transverse rows of gulars, 7 supralabials, 7 infralabials, 3 supraoculars, and 3 superciliaries. Except for the dorsal scales that are less intensively keeled, the absence of pores, and the absence of dark blotches in the venter, the female is very similar to the holotype.
Comparisons: Among the Heterodactylini (sensu Rodrigues et al., 2007) the presence of three pairs of genials is a synapomorphy of Acratosaura; in all other genera there are two pairs. Acratosaura spinosa and Acratosaura mentalis are very similar in number of transverse dorsal scale rows (28–31 vs 30–32, respectively), ventral scale rows (17–18 vs 17–19), scales around midbody (28–30 vs 27–30), fourth finger and fourth toe subdigital lamellae (respectively 14 vs 12–14 and 19–20 vs 16–23), number of gular scale rows (8 vs 7–9), and number of femoral pores (13 vs 13–18). They are identical with respect to the number of supralabials (7), infralabials (7), supraoculars (3), superciliaries (3), pairs of chin-shields (3), and have similar maximum body size (53 mm vs 59 mm). Nevertheless there are several important differences in scalation and color pattern. In Acratosaura spinosa anterior dorsal scales are strongly keeled and mucronate becoming more strongly keeled, strongly mucronate and lanceolate at midbody; in Acratosaura mentalis they are smooth and rounded anteriorly becoming progressively hexagonal and slightly keeled at midbody (Fig. 5). Temporal scales are striate in Acratosaura spinosa and smooth in Acratosaura mentalis. On the side of neck scales are keeled and slightly imbricate in Acratosaura spinosa but smooth and juxtaposed in A. mentalis. A small, narrow and elongate scute follows the sixth supralabial in Acratosaura spinosa; in A. mentalis it is followed by a large scute, identical to the precedent supralabial. There are two distinctive transversely enlarged rows of gulars in Acratosaura spinosa, in A. mentalis these scales are much smaller and never so conspicuously enlarged. In Acratosaura spinosa there is a series of enlarged and strongly keeled scales in the dorsal part of tight separating the posterior granular area and the anterior part recovered by enlarged smooth scales; in A. mentalis scales from this area are very small and slightly keeled. Tibia scales are also more pronouncedly keeled in Acratosaura spinosa than in its congener. There are also striking differences in color pattern between these two species (Fig. 2). The dorsal color pattern of Acratosaura spinosa consists basically of regular series of transversely and longitudinally arranged yellow spots, one scale wide on a dark brown background. In Acratosaura mentalis instead of this pattern and on an olive gray background there is a characteristic, wide middorsal yellow stripe, 2–3 dorsals wide, which extends from the frontal scale to the level of the arm insertion.
Distribution and natural history. Serra do Sincorá comprises a series of elevated plateaus and mountain ridges reaching up to about 1,600 m above sea level. It is a segment of Chapada Diamantina, the local name attributed to the northern portion of the extensive mountain ridge referred to as Serra do Espinhaço. The entire region is located in the municipality of Mucugê, state of Bahia, Brazil. Part of this area is now protected by the Parque Nacional da Chapada Diamantina. The entire area is dominated by “campos rupestres” (rocky meadows, see Giulietti & Pirani 1988; Rodrigues 1988) the typical open vegetation from altitudinal areas in the Espinhaço range where quartzitic sandy soils and rocky outcrops are characteristic (Fig. 6). Vegetation in the region also includes several types of Cerrado like vegetation, semidecidual seasonal forest (carrasco), and gallery forest along the river valleys. Specimens were obtained at Mucugê, near the village, and at Fazenda Caraíbas, a farm situated on a relatively flat upland plateau at around 1,100 m a.s.l. on the west side of the escarpments of Serra do Sincorá. The holotype, was found under a rock in typical campos rupestres; the paratype was exposed on the side of a road in a disturbed area in campos rupestres. Distance between the two localities in a straight line is about 12 km.
description: Published as part of Rodrigues, Miguel Trefaut, Cassimiro, José, Freitas, Marco Antonio De & Silva, Thaís Figueiredo Santos, 2009, A new microteiid lizard of the genus Acratosaura (Squamata: Gymnophthalmidae) from Serra do Sincorá, State of Bahia, Brazil, pp. 17-19 in Zootaxa 2013 on pages 18-25, DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.185858