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Cercosaura bassleri RUIBAL, 1952

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Higher TaxaGymnophthalmidae (Cercosaurinae), Sauria, Gymnophthalmoidea, Squamata (lizards)
Subspecies 
Common NamesE: Ocellated Tegu 
SynonymCercosaura ocellata bassleri RUIBAL 1952: 499
Cercosaura ocellata bassleri — PETERS et al. 1970: 91
Cercosaura ocellata bassleri — AVILA-PIRES 1995: 365
Cercosaura ocellata bassleri — LEHR 2002
Cercosaura ocellata — FRANÇA & VENÂNCIO 2010: 76
Cercosaura ocellata ocellata — CUNHA 1961: 131 (part)
Cercosaura ocellata baessleri — DIXON & SOINI 1975: 6 (in error)
Cercosaura ocellata — DOAN 2003: 104 (part)
Cercosaura ocellata — OLIVEIRA & MOURA 2013: 387 (part)
Cercosaura ocellata — SALES et al., 2014: 1531 (part)
Cercosaura bassleri — TORRES-CARVAJAL et al. 2015
Cercosaura ocellata bassleri — RIBEIRO-JUNIOR & AMARAL 2016 
DistributionPeru, Brazil (Acre, Rondônia, Amazonas fide Costa & Bérnils 2018)

Type locality: Perené, Rio Perené, Peru.  
Reproductionoviparous (not imputed, fide Zimin et al. 2022) 
TypesHolotype: AMNH 23191, adult male 
DiagnosisDiagnosis: Cercosaura with maximum female SVL 64.0 mm and maximum male SVL 64.6 mm; snout round; frontonasal single; nasal and frenocular undivided; loreal divided into upper and lower scales, lower one in contact with first supralabial; four infralabials to posterior margin of eyes; four pairs of chinshields; 13–25 neck scales in a vertical row; 24–39 scales around midbody; dorsal scales hexagonal, keeled and organized in longitudinal rows, twice as long as scales on flanks, 31–37 along a middorsal line, from occipitals to anterior margin of hind limbs; six longitudinal rows of ventrals; precloacal plate usually with two anterior and two posterior scales in males, two anterior and two or four posterior scales in females; 3–8 femoral pores on one side in males, 3–7 in females; 6–8 lamellae under finger I; head, throat and body ventrally predominantly white or cream (in adult males it may become orange), usually with black blotches (from Sturaro et al. 2018). 
CommentThe only character that seems to devide ocellata and bassleri is an undivided (ocellata) or divided (bassleri) loreal scale, although other distinguishing (but more variable) characters exist.

Distribution: TORRES-CARVAJAL et al. 2015 almost exclusively used samples from Ecuador for their phylogenetic analysis while Cercosaura ocellata and its subspecies occur over a larger area in South America (mostly Brazil). 
EtymologyNamed in honor of Dr. Harvey Bassler, “who made extensive herpetological collections in Peru”. 
References
  • Aparicio, J. 1992. Herpetofauna. In: H. Salm and M. Marconi (eds.), Reserva Nacional Amazónica Manuripi-Heath. Programa de reestructuración (Fase II), PL-480, LIDEMA, CORDEPANDO. La Paz. Pp. 113-119.
  • Avila-Pires, T.C.S. 1995. Lizards of Brazilian Amazonia (Reptilia: Squamata). Zoologische Verhandelingen 299: 1-706 - get paper here
  • Bauer, A.M. and R. Günther 1994. An annotated type catalogue of the teiid and microteiid lizards in the Zoological Museum, Berlin (Reptilia: Squamata: Teiidae and Gymnophthalmidae). Mitt. Zool. Mus. Berlin 70:267-280 - get paper here
  • Bernarde, Paulo Sérgio;, Reginaldo Assêncio Machado & Luiz Carlos Batista Turci 2011. Herpetofauna da área do Igarapé Esperança na Reserva Extrativista Riozinho da Liberdade, Acre – Brasil. Biota Neotropica 11 (3): 117-144 - get paper here
  • Burt,C.E. & Burt,M.D. 1931. South American lizards in the collection of the American Museum of Natural History. Bull. Amer. Mus. nat. Hist. 61 (7): 227-395 - get paper here
  • CATENAZZI, A., LEHR, E. & VON MAY, R. 2013. The amphibians and reptiles of Manu National Park and its buffer zone, Amazon basin and eastern slopes of the Andes, Peru. Biota Neotropica 13 (4): 269-283
  • Costa, Henrique Caldeira; Renato Silveira Bérnils 2018. Répteis do Brasil e suas Unidades Federativas: Lista de espécies. Herpetologia Brasileira 7 (1): 11-57
  • Dirksen, L. & De la Riva, I. 1999. The lizards and amphisbaenians of Bolivia (Reptilia, Squamata): checklist, localities, and bibliography. Graellsia 55: 199-215 - get paper here
  • Dixon, J. R.; Soini, P. 1975. The reptiles of the upper Amazon basin, Iquitos region, Peru, Part I. Lizards and Amphisbaenians. Milwaukee Public Museum Contributions in Biology and Geology 4: 1-58 [1986?] - get paper here
  • Doan, T.M. 2003. A new phylogenetic classification for the gymnophthalmid genera Cercosaura, Pantodactylus and Prionodactylus (Reptilia: Squamata). Zool. J. Linnean Soc. 137 (1): 101-115 - get paper here
  • Duellman, W. E. 2005. Cusco Amazónico: The Lives of Amphibians and Reptiles in an Amazonian Rainforest. Comstock Pub Assoc.
  • Duellman, W.E., & Salas, A.W. 1991. Annotated checklist of the amphibians and reptiles of Cuzco Amazonico, Peru. Occas. Papers Mus. of Natur. Hist., Univ. of Kansas, Lawrence (143): 13 pp. - get paper here
  • Echevarría LY, Barboza AC, Venegas PJ. 2015. A new species of montane gymnophthalmid lizard, genus Cercosaura (Squamata: Gymnophthalmidae), from the Amazon slope of northern Peru. Amphibian & Reptile Conservation 9(1): 34–44 (e109) - get paper here
  • Griffin, L. E. 1917. A list of the South American lizards of the Carnegie Museum, with descriptions of four new species. Annals of the Carnegie Museum 11: 304-320. - get paper here
  • Lehr, E. 2001. New records for amphibians and reptiles from Departamentos Pasco and Ucayali, Peru. Herpetological Review 32 (2): 130-132 - get paper here
  • Lehr, E. 2002. Amphibien und Reptilien in Peru. Natur und Tier-Verlag (Münster), 208 pp. - get paper here
  • Miranda, Daniele Bazzo; Nathocley Mendes Venâncio, Saymon de Albuquerque 2014. Rapid survey of the herpetofauna in an area of forest management in eastern Acre, Brazil. Check List 10 (4): 893-899 - get paper here
  • Rabosky, Daniel L.; Rudolf von May, Michael C. Grundler and Alison R. Davis Rabosky 2019. The Western Amazonian Richness Gradient for Squamate Reptiles: Are There Really Fewer Snakes and Lizards in Southwestern Amazonian Lowlands? Diversity 11: 199; doi:10.3390/d11100199 - get paper here
  • RIBEIRO-JÚNIOR, MARCO A. & SILVANA AMARAL 2017. Catalogue of distribution of lizards (Reptilia: Squamata) from the Brazilian Amazonia. IV. Alopoglossidae, Gymnophthalmidae. Zootaxa 4269 (2): 151-196 - get paper here
  • Ruibal, R. 1952. Revisionary studies of some South American Teiidae. Bull. Mus. Comp. Zool. Harvard 106: 475-529 (477?)-529. - get paper here
  • Sturaro, M. J., Rodrigues, M. T., Colli, G. R., Knowles, L. L., & Avila-Pires, T. C. S. 2018. Integrative taxonomy of the lizards Cercosaura ocellata species complex (Reptilia: Gymnophthalmidae). Zoologischer Anzeiger - get paper here
  • Torres-Carvajal, Omar; Simón E. Lobos, Pablo J. Venegas 2015. Phylogeny of Neotropical Cercosaura (Squamata: Gymnophthalmidae) lizards. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 93: 281–288 - 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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