(Press-News.org) Field and laboratory work by Omar Torres-Carvajal from Museo de Zoología QCAZ, Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador, and his former undergraduate student Simón Lobos has resulted in the discovery of a gem-looking new species of shade lizard from the cloudforests in northwestern Ecuador. This region is part of the 274,597 km2 Tumbes-Chocó-Magdalena hotspot that lies west of the Andes. The study was published in the open access journal ZooKeys.
Shade lizards (genus Alopoglossus) are widely distributed across tropical South America. They differ from most other lizards in having their tongues covered by folds instead of scale-like papillae. Shade lizards are generally brown leaf-litter dwellers that live on both sides of the tropical Andes. The unusually brightly coloured new species described by Torres-Carvajal and Lobos was named Alopoglossus viridiceps and increases to seven the number of species of this group of lizards, six of which live in Ecuador.
Lizards collected as far back as 1977 and deposited in Museo de Zoología QCAZ were examined. The authors were soon surprised with an interesting finding. Some individuals collected during the last five years, mostly at the Santa Lucía Cloud Forest Reserve in northwestern Ecuador, had a metallic greenish head and an orange belly.
Other features like numbers of scales, as well as DNA evidence, indicated that these cloudforest lizards actually belong to a new species. DNA data also suggest that its closest relative is Alopoglossus festae, a species that inhabits the Pacific lowlands of Colombia and Ecuador.
'Simón Lobos and I have been working on shade lizards since 2010, and we have preliminary data suggesting that the widespread Pacific shade lizard, Alopoglossus festae, might actually represent several species new to science. The same pattern of "hidden diversity" applies to the Amazonian species. Therefore, the diversity of shade lizards has been underestimated. We are presently working on papers to share these discoveries with the scientific community' said Dr. Torres-Carvajal.
INFORMATION:
Additional Information
This research was funded by Secretaría de Educación Superior, Ciencia, Tecnología e Innovación del Ecuador (SENESCYT) and Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador (PUCE)
Original source
Torres-Carvajal O, Lobos SE (2014) A new species of Alopoglossus lizard (Squamata, Gymnophthalmidae) from the tropical Andes, with a molecular phylogeny of the genus. ZooKeys 410: 105–120. doi: 10.3897/zookeys.410.7401
Scaly gem discovered in South American cloudforests
2014-05-21
[Attachments] See images for this press release:
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
Shattering past of the 'island of glass'
2014-05-21
A tiny Mediterranean island visited by the likes of Madonna, Sting, Julia Roberts and Sharon Stone is now the focus of a ground-breaking study by University of Leicester geologists.
Pantelleria, a little-known island between Sicily and Tunisia, is a volcano with a remarkable past: 45 thousand years ago, the entire island was covered in a searing-hot layer of green glass.
Volcanologists Drs Mike Branney, Rebecca Williams and colleagues at the University of Leicester Department of Geology have been uncovering previously unknown facts about the island's physical history.
And ...
The interruption of biological rhythms during chemotherapy worsen its side effects
2014-05-21
Patients receiving chemical treatment for cancer often suffer fatigue and body weight loss, two of the most worrying effects of this therapy linked to the alteration of their circadian rhythms.
The circadian system, better known as our biological clock, is responsible for coordinating all the processes that take place in our organism.
If it does not function correctly, what is known as a circadian disruption or chronodisruption, has for years been linked to an increased incidence of cancer, obesity, diabetes, depression, cognitive problems or cardiovascular diseases.
"Also, ...
New tide gauge uses GPS signals to measure sea level change
2014-05-21
A new way of measuring sea level using satellite navigation system signals, for instance GPS, has been implemented by scientists at Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden. Sea level and its variation can easily be monitored using existing coastal GPS stations, the scientists have shown.
Measuring sea level is an increasingly important part of climate research, and a rising mean sea level is one of the most tangible consequences of climate change. Researchers at Chalmers University of Technology have studied new ways of measuring sea level that could become important ...
Dam removal improves shad spawning grounds, may boost survival rate
2014-05-21
Research from North Carolina State University finds that dam removal improves spawning grounds for American shad and seems likely to improve survival rates for adult fish, juveniles and eggs – but for different reasons.
The researchers focused on a small tributary in North Carolina called the Little River, where three dams were removed in the late 1990s and early 2000s. American shad (Alosa sapidissima) spend the bulk of their adult lives in saltwater, but return to freshwater rivers like this one to spawn. While in these freshwater environments, the adult shad do not ...
Breakthrough: Nasal spray may soon replace the pill
2014-05-21
Every time we have an infection or a headache and take a pill, we get a lot more drugs than our body actually needs. The reason is that only a fraction of the drugs in a pill reaches the right places in the body; the rest never reaches its destination and may cause unwelcome side effects before they are flushed out of the body again. This kind of major overdosing is especially true when doctors treat brain diseases, because the brain does not easily accept entering drugs.
"People with brain diseases are often given huge amounts of unnecessary drugs. During a long life, ...
Seeing is a matter of experience
2014-05-21
The headlights – two eyes, the radiator cowling – a smiling mouth: This is how our brain sometimes creates a face out of a car front. The same happens with other objects: in house facades, trees or stones – a "human face" can often be detected as well. Prof. Dr. Gyula Kovács from Friedrich Schiller University Jena (Germany) knows the reason why. "Faces are of tremendous importance for human beings," the neuroscientist explains. That's why in the course of the evolution our visual perception has specialized in the recognition of faces in particular. "This sometimes even ...
Cyberbullying affects rich and poor alike
2014-05-21
EAST LANSING, Mich. --- Cyberbullying isn't just a problem in middle class and affluent areas. Teenagers in poor, high-crime neighborhoods also experience online bullying, finds new research led by a Michigan State University criminologist.
The study suggests the "digital divide" – the gap between people with access to online technologies and those without – may be nonexistent, at least when it comes to cyberbullying, said Thomas J. Holt, MSU associate professor of criminal justice.
"We found neighborhood conditions that are indicative of poverty and crime are a significant ...
NASA sees developing tropical cyclone in Bay of Bengal
2014-05-21
VIDEO:
In this TRMM 3-D simulated flyby of System 92B from May 19, tall storms were shown reaching heights of over 14km (about 8.7 miles).
Click here for more information.
A tropical low pressure area known as System 92B has been organizing in the Northern Indian Ocean's Bay of Bengal and NASA's TRMM satellite has shown strong thunderstorms and heavy rainfall in the developing storm.
The Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission or TRMM satellite passed over System 92B on May 19 and ...
Shared custody is becoming the norm
2014-05-21
It's no longer a certainty that American mothers will get custody over their children during a divorce. In fact, if Wisconsin Court Records of the past 20 years are anything to go by, joint custody is becoming the norm. So says Maria Cancian and colleagues from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in the US, whose findings are published in Springer's journal Demography.
For most of the twentieth century, in both divorce and nonmarital cases, most children ended up living with their mothers after their parents' divorce. This conformed to gender norms that views mothers ...
Functional nerve cells from skin cells
2014-05-21
A new method of generating mature nerve cells from skin cells could greatly enhance understanding of neurodegenerative diseases, and could accelerate the development of new drugs and stem cell-based regenerative medicine.
The nerve cells generated by this new method show the same functional characteristics as the mature cells found in the body, making them much better models for the study of age-related diseases such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's, and for the testing of new drugs.
Eventually, the technique could also be used to generate mature nerve cells for transplantation ...