Mediodactylus Szczerbak & Golubev, 1977

Mediodactylus aspratilis (Anderson, 1973)

HOLOTYPE. USNM 193961.

TYPE LOCALITY. 35 km E Gach Saran, Fars Prov., Iran.

DISTRIBUTION. Endemic to Iran.

DISTRIBUTION IN IRAN. Fig. 48. SW Iran W of the Zagros. This gecko was for long thought to be distributed only in Fars and Kohgiluyeh and Boyer Ahmad Prov. (Anderson 1999; Sindaco & Jeremčenko 2008), but recent extensive field work in western Iran resulted in numerous new records from Kermanshah, Hamadan, and Lorestan Prov. (Kami 1999; Nazari-Serenjeh & Torki 2008a; Torki 2010b; Karamiani & Rastegar-Pouyani 2011).

HABITAT. Rocky Zagros foothill regions with sparse vegetation where the geckos seek for shelter in rock crevices and between boulders; also found on a wall of a residential building (Kami 1999; Karamiani & Rastegar-Pouyani 2011).

REMARKS. Originally described as Bunopus, but later on reassigned to the genus Carinatogecko (Golubev & Szczerbak 1981), which has been, in turn, synonymized with Mediodactylus by Červenka et al. (2010). However, many authors do not accept this later synonymization and consider Carinatogecko a valid genus (see comments by Torki (2011)), but without any support from phylogenetic analyses. Based on a distribution of key characters among examined specimens, Červenka et al. (2010) also tentatively concluded that M. aspratilis might be a junior synonym of M. heteropholis .

REFERENCES. Anderson (1973, 1999); Golubev & Szczerbak (1981); Kami (1999); Nazari-Serenjeh & Torki (2008a); Červenka et al. (2010); Karamiani & Rastegar-Pouyani (2011).