Registered users receive a variety of benefits including the ability to customize email alerts, create favorite journals list, and save searches.
Please note that a BioOne web account does not automatically grant access to full-text content. An institutional or society member subscription is required to view non-Open Access content.
Contact helpdesk@bioone.org with any questions.
Despite being among the largest and most conspicuous geckos across southern and eastern Africa, the toe-padded species of Chondrodactylus have remained one of the most taxonomically difficult groups of African lizards, due chiefly to their overall morphological conservativeness accompanied by high intraspecific variation. Current recognition of taxa is based on recent molecular phylogenetic analyses, but the application of the currently recognized nomina to particular populations has not yet been presented. We present a much-expanded multigene analysis of 234 representatives of the genus Chondrodactylus that supports the recognition of 6 species-level taxa, one without toepads, C. angulifer, as sister to five with pads: C. bibronii, C. turneri, C. laevigatus, C. pulitzerae, and C. fitzsimonsi. In general, the species can be recognized on the basis of the relative size of chin and gular scales, dorsal scalation, and head shape. However, the most widespread species, C. laevigatus is only very subtly distinct from C. turneri, with which it is likely parapatric in East Africa (although western populations of C. laevigatus are unambiguously diagnosable from all other congeners). Intraspecific divergences are high in some of the species. In C. fitzsimonsi there is evidence of shared nuclear haplotypes with C. pulitzerae and potential morphological evidence for hybridization or introgression with C. laevigatus. Chondrodactylus turneri exhibits a mitochondrial gene rearrangement that is unique among all geckos followed by an insertion of roughly 200 base pairs that do not correspond to known sequences. Most Chondrodactylus species are primarily distributed in arid to semiarid southwestern Africa, where as many as 4 species occur in sympatry in northern Namibia. In contrast, C. turneri is limited to the lowlands of the southeast and C. laevigatus follows the “arid-corridor” traversing sub-Saharan Africa southwest to northeast.
This article is only available to subscribers. It is not available for individual sale.
Access to the requested content is limited to institutions that have
purchased or subscribe to this BioOne eBook Collection. You are receiving
this notice because your organization may not have this eBook access.*
*Shibboleth/Open Athens users-please
sign in
to access your institution's subscriptions.
Additional information about institution subscriptions can be foundhere