An international team of researchers has described three new species of the genus Enyalioides from the tropical Andes in Ecuador and northern Peru.
The Alto Tambo woodlizard (Enyalioides altotambo), adult female, 13.2 cm long. Image credit: Luis A. Coloma.
Enyalioides (woodlizards) is a genus in the lizard family Hoplocercidae, endemic to the northern part of South America and Panama.
These lizards occupy lowland tropical rainforests including the Chocó and the western Amazon basin, with nine species occurring east of the Andes and three occurring west of the Andes.
The discovery of the three new species – the Alto Tambo woodlizard (Enyalioides altotambo), the rough-scaled woodlizard (Enyalioides anisolepis) and the Rothschild’s woodlizard (Enyalioides sophiarothschildae) – increases the number of species in the genus to 15.
“I started working with woodlizards in 2006 as part of my postdoc at the Smithsonian Institution under the direction of Kevin de Queiroz. At that time only seven species of woodlizards had been described, and they were recognized in the literature as one of the less diverse groups of South American lizards,” said Dr Omar Torres-Carvajal of the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador in Quito, Ecuador, the lead author of the paper published in the journal ZooKeys.
The Alto Tambo woodlizard is only known from two localities at 620–645 m in the Chocoan rainforests of northwestern Ecuador.
The Alto Tambo woodlizard “differs from other species of Enyalioides, except for E. oshaughnessyi, in having dorsal scales that are both smooth and homogeneous in size,” Dr Torres-Carvajal and his colleagues wrote in the paper.
The rough-scaled woodlizard (Enyalioides anisolepis), adult male, 13 cm long. Image credit: Omar Torres-Carvajal.
The rough-scaled woodlizard occurs between 724-1,742 m on the Amazonian slopes of the Andes in southern Ecuador and northern Peru.
“It is known from Provincia Zamora-Chinchipe in extreme southern Ecuador and Región Cajamarca in northern Peru. Most specimens were found sleeping at night between 0.2–1.5 m above ground on stems, leaves, and tree roots in primary and secondary forests. Nine of the 15 known specimens were found within 5 m of small streams.”
The rough-scaled woodlizard “can be distinguished from other species of Enyalioides, except for E. heterolepis, by having conical dorsal head scales and scattered, projecting, large scales on the dorsum, flanks, and hind limbs, which are conspicuous in adults of both sexes.”
The third new species, the Rothschild’s woodlizard, is known from the northeastern slopes of the Cordillera Central in Peru between 1,600-1,700 m.
“This species is only known from two adjacent localities, the trail to La Cueva-Añasco Pueblo in the drainage of the Lejía river and El Dorado in the drainage of the Blanco river, both tributaries of the Huallabamba river in the northern part of the Huallaga river basin. This area corresponds to the Selva Alta (400–1000 m) and Yungas (300–2300 m) ecoregions,” the scientists wrote.
The Rothschild’s woodlizard (Enyalioides sophiarothschildae), adult male, 13.5 cm long. Image credit: Pablo J. Venegas.
“Individuals of Enyalioides sophiarothschildae were found active by day in primary forest. The holotype was found crossing a trail and tried to hide between the roots of a big tree when approached for capture. One of the paratypes climbed up a tree three meters above the ground when approached. The other paratype was found sitting on a big root.”
The Rothschild’s woodlizard “can be distinguished from other species of Enyalioides, except for E. laticeps, by having caudal scales that are relatively homogeneous in size on each caudal segment; in all other species of Enyalioides, the dorsal and lateral caudals increase in size posteriorly on each caudal segment, and the largest caudals on each segment are mucronate or have some kind of projection.”
“During the last few years we doubled the number of known species of woodlizards, showing that the diversity of these conspicuous reptiles had been underestimated,” Dr Torres-Carvajal said.
“That more than half of the diversity of a group of large, dragon-looking reptiles from South America has been discovered in recent years should be heard by people in charge of conservation and funding agencies.”
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Torres-Carvajal O et al. 2015. Three new species of woodlizards (Hoplocercinae, Enyalioides) from northwestern South America. ZooKeys 494: 107-132; doi: 10.3897/zookeys.494.8903
