Microgecko persicus ( Nikolsky, 1903 )

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 : 24

Microgecko persicus ( Nikolsky, 1903)

HOLOTYPE. ZIL 10005 ; Holotype CAS 86408 (M. p. bakhtiari) .

TYPE LOCALITY. Vicus Degak in terra Dizak, Persia orient. [= Dehak, Sistan and Baluchistan Prov., Iran].

DISTRIBUTION. Iran, Pakistan, India.

DISTRIBUTION IN IRAN. Fig. 58. S Iran from Khuzestan to Sistan and Baluchistan Prov. in a belt of about 300 km along the Persian Gulf shores.

HABITAT. Found in various types of habitats from mountain or hilly regions with various degree of forestation to sand dunes on sedimentary plains. Karamiani et al. (2013) collected specimens of M. p. bakhtiari Minton, Anderson & Anderson on gypsum foothills with scarce vegetation.

REMARKS. There are two subspecies occurring in Iran: the nominotypical one in the east of the country and M. p. bakhtiari in Khuzestan and Bushehr Prov. The two subspecies can be distinguished on the basis of different dorsal colour pattern, M. p. bakhtiari having dark crossbars broader than interspaces while the pattern in M. p. persicus is the opposite. However, Rajabizadeh et al. (2010a) found varying dorsal pattern among specimens from a locality in Hormozgan Prov. and assumed that there is a clinal variation in the width of dorsal bands across Iran. There is a single specimen in the MCZ collection ( MCZ R-127395) from “ 35 km E of Gach Saran ”, Fars Prov., supposedly belonging to M. p. euphorbiacola Minton, Anderson & Anderson, a subspecies distributed in S Pakistan and NW India, which we consider wrongly determined based on its location, but closer examination of the specimen is needed .

REFERENCES. Minton et al. (1970); Anderson (1999); Rajabizadeh et al. (2010a); Torki (2010c); Karamiani et al. (2013).

Figures

FIGURES 56–61. 56. Microgecko helenae. Blue square denotes the type locality for M. h. fasciatus. 57. Microgecko latifi. 58. Microgecko persicus. Blue square denotes the type locality for M. p. bakhtiari. 59. Pseudoceramodactylus khobarensis. 60. Rhinogekko femoralis. 61. Rhinogekko misonnei.