An international group of scientists, including staff from the Zoological Museum of Lomonosov Moscow State University, has described 10 new species of thin-toed geckos living in Iran.
elchi reports that, according to the university’s press service, one of the species has been named in honor of Russian herpetologist Nikolai Orlov.
Thin-toed geckos have long remained a “blank spot” in the systematics of Middle Eastern fauna. For the first time, the study authors used DNA barcoding to analyze 251 lizard specimens collected from 32 locations in Iran during Russian-Iranian expeditions between 2004 and 2023. They succeeded in identifying and describing 10 new gecko species.
“Among them are the spider-like gecko Cyrtopodion arachnoideum with extraordinarily thin legs and tail, the coastal Cyrtopodion maritimum, the mountainous Cyrtopodion kuhestanense (found at an altitude of over 2,000 meters), as well as Cyrtopodion minimum, the smallest representative of the complex with a body length of less than 3.3 cm. One of the species (Cyrtopodion orlovi) is named in honor of the prominent Russian herpetologist Nikolai Lyutsianovich Orlov,” the university stated.
This discovery not only expands fundamental knowledge about Iranian fauna but also lays the groundwork for future research into the evolution of these species.
The results of the work were published in the “Russian Journal of Herpetology”.
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