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Asaccus saffinae AFRASIAB & MOHAMAD, 2009

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Higher TaxaPhyllodactylidae, Gekkota, Sauria, Squamata (lizards: geckos)
Subspecies 
Common Names 
SynonymAsaccus saffinae AFRASIAB & MOHAMAD 2009
Asaccus saffinae — MOHAMMED et al. 2017 
DistributionIraq (Saffine mountain)

Type locality: Shera Swar Cave in the Saffine Mountain near Irbil, Kurdistan of Iraq (44°45’N, 36°37’E).  
Reproductionoviparous (manual imputation, fide Zimin et al. 2022) 
TypesHolotype: IMNH 720 (was IRAQ 720 = Iraq Natural History Museum, Baghdad University). Female collected on 21.ix.2008. 
DiagnosisDiagnosis: Small-sized Asaccus species; postmental separate, dorsal scales smooth, tubercles not keeled, smaller than half diameter of ear opening, lamellae equal in size to the ear opening. Nine very faint dark bars on the tail and 6 dorsal blotches. No cloacal sacs. Body rather slender. Asaccus saffinae sp. n. differs in shape and morphology from all other members of the genus. It is somewhat close to A. kermanshahensis Rastegar-Pouyani, 1996, but differs from it by having a faint dark ring on the tail and by the size of the diameter of the tubercle (less than half diameter of ear in A. saffinae), whilst in A. kermanshahensis there is no dark ring, and the tubercle is 3/4 of ear opening; and also by the separation of anterior postmental in A. saffinae sp. n. which is not seen in A. kermanshahensis. 
CommentSynonymy: TORKI et al. (2011) “can not find any differences between A. saffinae and the Iranian A. griseonotus, so A. saffinae is a synonym for A. griseonotus”.

Abundance: only known from its original description (Meiri et al. 2017). This is one of the species called 'lost' and 'rediscovered' by Lindken et al. 2024. 
EtymologyNamed after the type locality. 
References
  • Afrasiab, Saman R. and Sarbaz I. Mohamad 2009. A study on cave-dwelling geckos in Iraq, with the description of a new species from Saffine mountain (Reptilia: Gekkonidae). Zoology in the Middle East 47:49-56 - get paper here
  • Lindken T.; Anderson, C. V., Ariano-Sánchez, D., Barki, G., Biggs, C., Bowles, P., Chaitanya, R., Cronin, D. T., Jähnig, S. C., Jeschke, J. M., Kennerley, R. J., Lacher, T. E. Jr., Luedtke, J. A., Liu, C., Long, B., Mallon, D., Martin, G. M., Meiri, 2024. What factors influence the rediscovery of lost tetrapod species? Global Change Biology, 30: 1-18 - get paper here
  • Meiri, Shai; Aaron M. Bauer, Allen Allison, Fernando Castro-Herrera, Laurent Chirio, Guarino Colli, Indraneil Das, Tiffany M. Doan, Frank Glaw, Lee L. Grismer, Marinus Hoogmoed, Fred Kraus, Matthew LeBreton, Danny Meirte, Zoltán T. Nagy, Cristiano d 2017. Extinct, obscure or imaginary: the lizard species with the smallest ranges. Diversity and Distributions - get paper here
  • Mohammed, Rihab Ghaleb; Fadhel Aabbas Rhadi, Nasrullah Rastegar-Pouyani, Eskandar Rastegar-Pouyani, Seyyed Saeed Hosseinian Yousefkhani 2017. Zoogeography of Lizards Fauna from Central and Southern Iraq with a Checklist of Iraqi Lizard’s Fauna. Russ. J. Herpetol. 24 (3): 193-201 - get paper here
  • Parsa, H.; H. Oraie; A. Khosravani; N. Rastegar Pouyani 2009. Systematics and Distribution of the Iranian Plateau Leaf-toed Geckos of the Genus Asaccus (Sauria: Gekkonidae). Iranian Journal of Animal Biosystematics 5 (2) - get paper here
  • Torki, F.; Ahmadzadeh, F.; Ilgaz, C.; Avci, A. & Kumlutas, Y. 2011. Description of four new Asaccus Dixon and Anderson, 1973 (Reptilia: Phyllodactylidae) from Iran and Turkey. Amphibia-Reptilia 32 (2): 185-202 - get paper here
  • Zimin, A., Zimin, S. V., Shine, R., Avila, L., Bauer, A., Böhm, M., Brown, R., Barki, G., de Oliveira Caetano, G. H., Castro Herrera, F., Chapple, D. G., Chirio, L., Colli, G. R., Doan, T. M., Glaw, F., Grismer, L. L., Itescu, Y., Kraus, F., LeBreton 2022. A global analysis of viviparity in squamates highlights its prevalence in cold climates. Global Ecology and Biogeography, 00, 1–16 - get paper here
 
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