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Multilocus phylogeny and a new classification for African, Asian and Indian supple and writhing skinks (Scincidae: Lygosominae)

Freitas, Elyse S and Datta-Roy, Aniruddha and Karanth, Praveen and Grismer, L Lee and Siler, Cameron D (2019) Multilocus phylogeny and a new classification for African, Asian and Indian supple and writhing skinks (Scincidae: Lygosominae). In: ZOOLOGICAL JOURNAL OF THE LINNEAN SOCIETY, 186 (4). pp. 1067-1096.

Full text not available from this repository.
Official URL: https://doi.org/10.1093/zoolinnean/zlz001

Abstract

The genera Lepidothyris, Lygosoma and Mochlus comprise the writhing or supple skinks, a group of semi-fossorial, elongate-bodied skinks distributed across the Old World Tropics. Due to their generalized morphology and lack of diagnostic characters, species- and Glade-level relationships have long been debated. Recent molecular phylogenetic studies of the group have provided some clarification of species-level relationships, but a number of issues regarding higher level relationships among genera still remain. Here we present a phylogenetic estimate of relationships among species in Lygosoma, Mochlus and Lepidothyris generated by concatenated and species tree analyses of multilocus data using the most extensive taxonomic sampling of the group to date. We also use multivariate statistics to examine species and Glade distributions in morpho space. Our results reject the monophyly of Lygosoma s.l., Lygosoma s.s. and Mochlus, which highlights the instability of the current taxonomic classification of the group. We, therefore, revise the taxonomy of the writhing skinks to better reflect the evolutionary history of Lygosoma s.l. by restricting Lygosoma for Southeast Asia, resurrecting the genus Riopa for a Glade of Indian and Southeast Asian species, expanding the genus Mochlus to include all African species of writhing skinks and describing a new genus in Southeast Asia.

Item Type: Journal Article
Publication: ZOOLOGICAL JOURNAL OF THE LINNEAN SOCIETY
Publisher: OXFORD UNIV PRESS
Additional Information: Copyright of this article belongs to OXFORD UNIV PRESS
Keywords: Africa; India; Lamprolepis; Lepidothyris; Lygosoma; Mochlus; Riopa; Southeast Asia; taxonomy
Department/Centre: Division of Biological Sciences > Centre for Ecological Sciences
Date Deposited: 20 Jan 2020 06:58
Last Modified: 20 Jan 2020 06:58
URI: http://eprints.iisc.ac.in/id/eprint/63987

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