Sceloporus utiformis Cope

Castiglia, Riccardo, Annesi, Flavia, Bezerra, Alexandra M. R., García, Andrés & Flores-Villela, Oscar, 2010, Cytotaxonomy and DNA taxonomy of lizards (Squamata, Sauria) from a tropical dry forest in the Chamela-Cuixmala Biosphere Reserve on the coast of Jalisco, Mexico, Zootaxa 2508, pp. 1-29 : 14

Sceloporus utiformis Cope (Cope's largescale spiny lizard)

Specimens analysed: three males (CEAC 12, CEAC13, CAEC14)

Distribution: Mexican endemic. It is distributed along the Pacific slope from southern Sinaloa to western Guerrero.

Subspecies: no subspecies have been described.

Karyotype and DNA taxonomy: the karyotype for this species has been described from two specimens, one male and one female, both from Jalisco in a locality (northwest of Puerto Los Mazos) about 70 Km from Chamela ( Cole 1971). The diploid number was 2n = 34 and the male carried a heteromorphic pair of microchromomes that were not present in the female. This polymorphism has been interpreted as a XY sex chromosomal system ( Cole 1971). The specimens analysed in this study show a karyotype identical to the one previously reported ( Fig. 7 ). It is composed of 12 biarmed chromosomes and 22 microchromosomes. In these male individuals one of the microchromosomes is very small. Therefore we confirm the presence of a XY sex chromosome system in this species.

The rDNA 16S has been studied for a single specimen from Jalisco (Boca de Iguanas), which is near the locality for specimens in the present study ( Wiens & Reeder 1997; Flores-Villela et al. 2000). The from Chamela differ by 3% from the previous studied sample, which is a low value of divergence consistent with an intraspecific divergence.

Figures

FIGURE 7. Karyotype of Sceloporus utiformis, male (2 n = 34). The smaller microchromosome represents the Y chromosome. The X chromosome is another unidentified microchromosome.