Eremias persica, Anderson, 1999

Mozaffari, Omid, Ahmadzadeh, Faraham & Saberi-Pirooz, Reihaneh, 2020, Fahimi’s racerunner, a new species of the genus Eremias Fitzinger, 1834 (Sauria: Lacertidae) from Iran, Zootaxa 4768 (4), pp. 565-578 : 571

Eremias persica and similar species

Blanford described Eremias persica in 1875 but the type locality is not exact and limited to just “near Esfahan ”. In 1974 Szczerbak designated the lectotype, but did not give a register number. Therefore there isn’t any certain specimen from the type series. Since there are many specimens identified as Eremias persica ( Anderson, 1999; Leviton et al., 1992; Mozaffari et al., 2006) from all over Iran’s central and eastern plateau and the new population of Eremias from Markazi Province of Iran shows some morphological similarities to the E. persica , two groups of datasets where added to the phylogenetic analyses; one group from around the type locality and the other from north easternmost known population of this species due to this possibility that the recent new population of Eremias could be the north westernmost population of E. persica . According to combined morphological and genetic evidence, the new population of Eremias from Markazi Province of Iran is considered as undescribed species.