Phrynocephalus arabicus Anderson, 1894

Šmíd, Jiří, Moravec, Jiří, Kodym, Petr, Kratochvíl, Lukáš, Yousefkhani, Seyyed Saeed Hosseinian, Rastegar-Pouyani, Eskandar & Frynta, Daniel, 2014, Annotated checklist and distribution of the lizards of Iran, Zootaxa 3855 (1), pp. 1-97 : 10

Phrynocephalus arabicus Anderson, 1894

SYNTYPES. BMNH 1946.8 .28.33 (ex. BMNH 97.3.11.51), BMNH 1946.8 .28.34 (ex. BMNH 97.3.11.52).

TYPE LOCALITY. Plateau of the Hadramut [= Hadramaut, Yemen].

DISTRIBUTION. Widely distributed in the Arabian Peninsula, extends northward to S Jordan ( Wittenberg 1992), Iraq and marginally SW Iran.

DISTRIBUTION IN IRAN. Fig. 13 . Khuzestan Prov.

HABITAT. Fine, windblown sand, sloping sand between mounds of vegetation and foot of large dunes. If threatened, it buries itself rapidly by lateral body oscillations.

REMARKS. Observations of P. arabicus in Oman showed that wherever suitable habitat appears this species can reach very high population densities (pers. obs.). There are no data available regarding the biology and natural history of this species in Iran.

REFERENCES. Anderson (1999).

Figures

FIGURES 8–13. 8. Laudakia erythrogaster. 9. Laudakia melanura. 10. Laudakia microlepis. 11. Laudakia nupta. Blue square denotes the type locality for L. n. fusca. 12. Phrynocephalus ananjevae. 13. Phrynocephalus arabicus.