Eremias velox ( Pallas, 1771 )

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 : 37

Eremias velox ( Pallas, 1771)

NEOTYPE. ZIL 16233, designated by Szczerbak (1974).

TYPE LOCALITY. Originally “Inderskinsem lacum”; regarded as “Inderskija Gory, Gebiet des unteren Ural-flusses” [= region of lower Ural River, W Kazakhstan] by Mertens & Wermuth (1960). For a note on the type locality see Zhao & Adler (1993).

DISTRIBUTION. S Russia, Transcaucasia, S Kazakhstan and the Central Asian republics, N Iran, N Afghanistan, NW China, and W Mongolia.

DISTRIBUTION IN IRAN. Fig. 107 . Southern coast of the Caspian Sea, northern Zagros , Alborz and Kopet Dagh range. There is an isolated record from Esfahan Prov. (Rajabizadeh, in litt.) and two from southern Iran from Kerman Prov. ( BMNH 1966.363 – 364 ), the latter two situated more than 700 km south from the continuous range. Their taxonomic status should be re-examined .

HABITAT. Steppe plains or foothills with low shrubby vegetation and grass tufts.

REMARKS. The nominotypical subspecies occurs in Iran. Phylogenetic analyses indicate deep intraspecific diversification within the E. velox complex dated back to 10 Mya with three distinct clades occurring in Iran which, as suggested by the authors, should represent separate species (Rastegar-Pouyani 2009; Rastegar-Pouyani et al. 2012, Liu et al. 2014).

REFERENCES. Anderson (1999); Rastegar-Pouyani (2009); Rastegar-Pouyani et al. (2012).

Figures

FIGURES 104–109. 104. Eremias pleskei. 105. Eremias strauchi. 106. Eremias suphani. 107. Eremias velox. 108. Iranolacerta brandtii. 109. Iranolacerta zagrosica.