Herpetology Notes, volume 6: 101-102 (2013) (published online on 22 March 2013)
New record of the gecko Crossobamon eversmanni lumsdeni (Boulenger, 1887) from Parvand Protected Area, Khorasan Razavi province, in eastern Iran. Ali Khani1, Masoud Yousefi2, Sayyad Sheykhi3, Ali Sheykhi4, Seyyed Saeed Hosseinian Yousefkhani5 and Eskandar Rastegar-Pouyani5, 6,* During field work in Khorasan Razavi province in May 2010, an isolated population of Crossobamon eversmanni was found inhibiting the sand dunes in the west of the province, in Parvand protected area; which is more than 200 km away from the closest locality record in Iran for this species (Anderson, 1999). In Iran, Crossobamon eversmanni is known by two wide-ranging subspecies: C. e. eversmanni distributed in Turkmenistan and other Central Asia republics (Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kazakhstan), North of Afghanistan, and East of Iran (Sindaco & Jeremcenko, 2008; Rastegar-Pouyani et al., 2008); and C. e. lumsdeni distributed in eastern Iran along Afghanistan and Pakistan border (Anderson, 1999; Rastegar-Pouyani, Johari and Rastegar-Pouyani, 2007). During our field work in the Parvand Protected Area (Fig. 1) in the eastern part of the Iranian Central Desert, Dasht-e Kavir, two specimens of Crossobamon eversmanni lumsdeni were captured (Fig. 2). The specimens were fixed in 96% ethanol and vouchered in the Sabzevar University Herpetological Collection (SUHC) with tag numbers SUHC 1003 and 1004. This record is the westernmost record for this subspecies in Iran (Fig. 3) and extends the known distributional range of about 230 km westward (Anderson, 1999). The 1 Department of Environment, Khorasan Razavi, Sabzevar, Iran 2 Department of Natural Environment , College of Agriculture & Natural Resources, Faculty of Natural Resources, University of Tehran, Karaj, Iran 3 Department of Environment Faculty of Natural Resources College of Agriculture & Natural Resources, University of Gorgan, Gorgan, Iran. 4 Department of Environment Faculty of Environment and Natural Resources University of Malayer , Malayer, Iran. 5 Iranian Plateau Herpetology Research Group (IPHRG), Faculty of Science, Razi University, 6714967346 Kermanshah, Iran 6 Department of Biology, Faculty of Science, Hakim Sabzevari University, Sabzevar, Iran Correspondence:
[email protected]
Parvand Protected area is about 16900 hectares wide and lies at elevation that ranges between 956 to 1463 m above the sea level. Several syntopic reptiles were recorded: Eryx jaculus, Phrynocephalus mystaceus, Trapelus agilis and Eremias lineolata. Since the sand dunes of Semnan province are close to Parvand Protected Area, it is likely that this gecko could occur also there, but further investigations are needed to clarify this. Morpho-molecular studies of all populations of this species is recommended to evaluate intraspecific relationships of these subspecies. Acknowledgements. We thank the game keeper, Yousef Parvandi, for his help during field work in the Parvand Protected Area. We thank Prof. Muhammad Sharif Khan (USA), for suggesting changes in the manuscript to enhance clarity.
References Anderson, S.C. (1999): The lizards of Iran. Society for the Study of Amphibians and Reptiles. Rastegar-Pouyani, N., Johari, M. and Rastegar-Pouyani, E. (2007): Field Guide to the Reptiles of Iran. Volume 1: Lizards. Second edition. Razi University Publishing, Iran. 296 p. (In Persian). Rastegar-Pouyani, N., Kami, H.G., Rajabizadeh, M., Shafiei, S., Anderson, S.C. (2008): Annotated Checklist of Amphibians and Reptiles of Iran. Iranian Journal of Animal Biosystematics 4 (1): 24 pp. Sindaco, R., Jeremčenko, V.K. (2008): The Reptiles of the Western Palearctic. 1. Annotated checklist and distributional atlas of the turtles, crocodiles, amphisbaenians and lizards of Europe, North Africa, Middle East and Central Asia. Edizioni Belvedere, Latina, Italy, 579 pp., 248 col. photos, 226 maps, many unnumbered text-figs.
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Figure 1. Habitat of Crossobamon eversmanni lumsdeni in Parvand Protected Area, Western Khorasan Razavi province (Photo by Saeed Hosseinian).
Figure 2. Crossobamon eversmanni lumsdeni (male) from Parvand Protected Area, Western Khorasan Razavi province (Photo by Masoud Yousefi).
Figure 3. Map of Iran and distance between new and previous records in Iran. Green circles show previous records (1: Hormak; 2: 35 km N of Gonabad; 3: Taybad; 4: Mozhn Abad; 5: Zirkuh) and the red circles refer to new record (6: Parvand protected area, Sabzevar); 230 km is the distance between the western previous records (2) and new record (6).
Accepted by Zoltan T. Nagy
