Pantodactylus schreibersii, (WIEGMANN)

Doan, Tiffany M., 2003, A new phylogenetic classification for the gymnophthalmid genera Cercosaura, Pantodactylus and Prionodactylus (Reptilia: Squamata), Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 137 (1), pp. 101-115 : 104-105

PANTODACTYLUS SCHREIBERSII (WIEGMANN)

Cercosaura schreibersii Wiegmann, 1834: 10 .

Pantodactylus dorbignyi Duméril & Bibron, 1839: 431 .

Cercosaura (Pantodactylus) schreibersii: Peters, 1862: 182 .

Pantodactylus bivittatus Cope, 1863: 103 .

Pantodactylus schreibersii: Boulenger, 1885: 388 .

Pantodactylus borelli Peracca, 1894: 176 .

Prionodactylus albostrigatus Griffin, 1917: 314 .

Euspondylus quadrilineatus: Burt & Burt, 1931: 335 . Pantodactylus schreibersii albostrigatus: Parker, 1931: 286 .

Pantodactylus schreibersii schreibersii: Ruibal, 1952: 515 .

Pantodactylus schreibersii: Tedesco & Cei, 1999: 314 (exclusive of P. s. parkeri ).

Ruibal (1952) recognized three subspecies of Pantodactylus schreibersii corresponding with geographical groups of forms that had been considered to be different species ( P. albostrigatus , parkeri and schreibersii ). I was not able to examine P. s. albostrigatus . Ruibal (1952) had considerable difficulty with this subspecies because he was only able to examine females of Prionodactylus albostrigatus and the original description was also restricted to females ( Griffin, 1917). Burt & Burt (1931) had synonymized Pr. albostrigatus with Pa. quadrilineatus and, because Ruibal (1952) only examined female Pr. albostrigatus specimens and male Pa. quadrilineatus specimens, he expressed concern that there was a possibility that they could be conspecific (in agreement with Burt & Burt, 1931). * Ruibal (1952) noted that scalation of P. s. albostrigatus was similar to P. s. schreibersii except where noted. He did not mention the postoculars.

However, Ruibal (1952) supported the distinctness of the two forms based on his limited data.

Although I was not able to examine P. s. albostrigatus , most of the P. quadrilineatus that I examined were females, in contrast to the sex of those specimens examined by Ruibal (1952). I was therefore able to compare the original description of Prionodactylus albostrigatus and the comments of Ruibal (1952) concerning his female specimens with the mostly female specimens of P. quadrilineatus that I examined; many differences were found ( Table 2). The differences are great enough to convince me that P. s. albostrigatus is closely related to P. schreibersii and only distantly related to P. quadrilineatus . This conclusion is supported by the molecular analysis of Pellegrino et al. (2001) in which P. s. albostrigatus and P. s. schreibersii were sister taxa, whereas P. quadrilineatus did not form a clade with either species.

Ruibal (1952) treated P. s. parkeri as a subspecies comprising the western populations of P. schreibersii from Peru, Bolivia and extreme western Brazil. The known range was later extended to north-west Argentina ( Viñas & Daneri, 1991). A recent study by Tedesco & Cei (1999) utilized osteological characters to determine if the two Argentinean forms, P. s. parkeri and P. s. schreibersii , merited species status. Their study revealed several osteological characters that distinguished the two forms. Therefore, Tedesco & Cei (1999) raised both P. s. schreibersii and P. s. parkeri to species status. Tedesco & Cei (1999) did not examine any specimens of P. s. albostrigatus , nor did they mention what status that subspecies might have. From the available data (based on the 61 characters that I examined and published information), P. s. albostrigatus appears to be quite similar to P. s. schreibersii and less similar to P. s. parkeri . Therefore, I tentatively consider P. s. albostrigatus to be a subspecies of P. schreibersii , whereas P. parkeri should retain the specific status granted by Tedesco & Cei (1999).