Affiliations 

  • 1 Department of Vertebrate Zoology, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, PO Box 37012, Washington, District of Columbia, 20013-7012 USA
  • 2 Global Genome Initiative, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, PO Box 37012, Washington, District of Columbia, 20013-7012 USA
  • 3 Department of Herpetology, Californian Academy of Sciences, Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, California, 94103 USA
Zookeys, 2017.
PMID: 28331413 DOI: 10.3897/zookeys.657.11600

Abstract

Recent fieldwork in southern Tanintharyi revealed the presence of a small Green Crested Lizard in the wet evergreen forest. We generated mtDNA sequence data (ND2) that demonstrates that this population's nearest relative is Bronchocela rayaensis Grismer et al., 2015 of Pulau Langkawi, northwestern Peninsular Malaysia and Phuket Island. Morphologically the Burmese Bronchocela shares many features with Bronchocela rayaensis, which potentially would make this recently described Thai-Malay species a synonym of Bronchocela burmana Blanford, 1878; however, we interpret the genetic and morphological differences to reflect evolutionary divergence and recommend the recognition of both species.

* Title and MeSH Headings from MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.