Alopoglossus festae Peracca (1904)

Ribeiro-Júnior, Marco Antonio, Choueri, Erik, Lobos, Simon, Venegas, Pablo, Torres-Carvajal, Omar & Werneck, Fernanda, 2019, Eight in one: morphological and molecular analyses reveal cryptic diversity in Amazonian alopoglossid lizards (Squamata: Gymnophthalmoidea), Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 190, pp. 227-270 : 227-228

Alopoglossus festae Peracca (1904) , Alopoglossus lehmanni Ayala & Harris (1984), Alopoglossus meloi Ribeiro-Júnior (2018) and Alopoglossus viridiceps Torres-Carvajal & Lobos (2014) ] and is distinguished from all gymnophthalmoid genera, except Ptychoglossus Boulenger (1890) , by the following combination of characters: an open Meckel’s groove, a tubular frontal bone and oblique plicae on the surface of the tongue ( Harris, 1985; Goicoechea et al., 2016). From Ptychoglossus (in parentheses), they differ in having keeled scales on the forelimbs (smooth forelimb scales) and rhomboid, laterally imbricating dorsal scales (parallel-sided dorsal scales) ( Harris, 1994). Widespread across the Amazon Basin and adjacent areas, A. angulatus has the widest distribution of all species of Alopoglossus ( Köhler et al., 2012; Ribeiro-Júnior & Amaral, 2017).

Alopoglossus angulatus was described by Linnaeus (1758) as Lacerta angulata based on a single specimen collected by Rolander in ‘America’. More than a century later, Cope (1876) described Lepidosoma carinicaudatum based on a single specimen from Marañon, collected during the Prof. Orton Expedition to Ecuador, Peru and Brazil. In 1881, O’Shaughnessy formalized the rehabilitation of Lepidosoma carinicaudatum to the genus Leposoma Spix (1825) . Subsequently, the genus Alopoglossus was described by Boulenger (1885) to accommodate both the new species described by him, Alopoglossus copii and Alopoglossus carinicaudatus (= Leposoma carinicaudatum Cope, 1876 ). In 1924, Ruthven described Alopoglossus amazonius based on one specimen from Villa Murtinho, Matto Grosso, Brazil. Brongersma (1946) described Alopoglossus copii surinamensis from the ‘forest on the Lucie River, Suriname’. Alopoglossus andeanus was described by Ruibal (1952) based on a single specimen from La Pampa, Puno, Peru; also, the author placed A. amazonius in the synonymy of A. carinicaudatus . In 1973, Hoogmoed resurrected Lacerta angulata , as Alopoglossus angulatus , and placed A. carinicaudatus in its synonymy. Hoogmoed (1973) also restricted the type locality of A. angulatus to Brown’s Mountain [Brownsberg], Suriname, by neotype selection. Ávila-Pires (1995) published a detailed description of A. angulatus from Brazilian Amazonia. Köhler et al. (2012) studied the variation in scutellation and morphometrics of Alopoglossus spp. , with an emphasis on Ecuadorian and Peruvian specimens, and placed A. andeanus in synonymy of A. angulatus . Ribeiro-Júnior (2018) described A. meloi in a revision of A. angulatus specimens broadly distributed in the Amazon Basin and redefined the nomenclature of some diagnostic characters of Alopoglossidae .

The first phylogenetic analysis of species-level relationships in Alopoglossus was the study by Pellegrino et al. (2001). Based on genetic data from three mitochondrial and two nuclear genes, the authors erected the subfamily Alopoglossinae , consisting solely of Alopoglossus . Castoe et al. (2004) increased sampling and re-analysed data of Pellegrino et al. (2001), proposing the inclusion of Ptychoglossus in Alopoglossinae . The close relationship between these two genera had already been suggested by Harris (1994) based on morphological similarities. Recently, Goicoechea et al. (2016) presented trees rejecting the monophyly of Gymnophthalmidae as traditionally circumscribed (e.g. Pellegrino et al., 2001; Castoe et al., 2004). Instead, Alopoglossus and Ptychoglossus form a clade sister to a much larger clade composed of Teiidae and the remaining gymnophthalmids. To preserve the family names Gymnophthalmidae and Teiidae, Goicoechea et al. (2016) erected Alopoglossidae to family status, including only Alopoglossus and Ptychoglossus . To date, Alopoglossidae includes two genera and 24 species.

Despite some recent studies (e.g. Köhler et al., 2012; Torres-Carvajal & Lobos, 2014; Ribeiro-Júnior & Amaral, 2017; Ribeiro-Júnior, 2018), the taxonomy of A. angulatus requires further resolution based on denser geographical sampling and integrative taxonomy approaches. Here, we present the results of a major revision of the widespread A. angulatus , in which we account for morphological and molecular variation to survey the distinctiveness and intraspecific structure. We include the description of two new species, resurrection of three species (with redescription of the holotypes), the first redescription of the neotype of A. angulatus and the recognition of two differentiated lineages as putative species, with a key to the species of Alopoglossus .