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Celestus striatus GRAY, 1839

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Higher TaxaDiploglossidae, Diploglossa, Anguimorpha, Sauria, Squamata (lizards)
Subspecies 
Common Names 
SynonymCelestus striatus GRAY 1839: 288 (see comment)
Diploglossus striatus — BOULENGER 1885: 289
Diploglossus striatus — FISCHER 1888: 29
Celestus striatus — SCHOOLS & HEDGES 2021
Celestus striatus — SCHOOLS & HEDGES 2024: 100

Diploglossus fowleri SCHWARTZ 1971: 3
Celestus fowleri — SCHWARTZ & HENDERSON 1991: 373
Celestus fowleri — WILSON 2011
Celestus fowleri — SCHOOLS & HEDGES 2021 
DistributionUnknown (to Gray), but most likely Jamaica

fowleri: Jamaica; Type locality: Windsor, elevation about 500 ft., Trelawny Parish, Jamaica.  
Reproduction 
TypesHolotype: BMNH 1946.8.8.3; other specimens: KU, MCZ
Holotype: MCZ 125601, female [fowleri] 
DiagnosisAdditional details, e.g. a detailed description or comparisons (2388 characters), are available for collaborators and contributors. Please contact us for details. 
CommentSynonymy: Gray’s name may be a nomen nudum. He described the species with only one word, “Silvery”, plus a definition of what he included in Celestus (see diagnosis). Schools & Hedges 2024 synonymized D. fowleri with C. striatus.

Abundance: D. fowleri was only known from its original description (Meiri et al. 2017).

Conservation: Possibly extinct. Presumably, the introduction of the mongoose to Jamaica in 1872 (Hedges & Conn 2012) either severely decimated C. striatus or caused it to go extinct. This is not unexpected considering that another Jamaican species, C. occiduus, has not been seen since the 19th century, and several other Jamaican species are exceedingly rare, all attributed to the mongoose introduction (Barbour 1910; Hedges & Conn 2012, Schools & Hedges 2021).

Habitat: Species of Celestus are mostly ground-adapted ecomorphs although C. duquesneyi is tree-adapted (Schools et al. 2022).

Type species: Celestus striatus GRAY 1839: 288 is the type species of the genus Celestus GRAY 1839. 
EtymologyNamed after Latin stria = groove, in reference to the scales of this species, which were noted by Gray (1839) as striate but not keeled. 
References
  • Beolens, Bo; Michael Watkins, and Michael Grayson 2011. The Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, USA - get paper here
  • Boulenger, G.A. 1885. Catalogue of the lizards in the British Museum (Natural History). Vol. 2, Second edition. London, xiii+497 pp. - get paper here
  • Fischer, J.G. 1888. Über eine Kollektion Reptilien und Amphibien von Hayti. Jahrb. Hamburg. Wiss. Anst. 5: 23-45. - get paper here
  • Gray, J. E. 1839. Catalogue of the slender-tongued saurians, with descriptions of many new genera and species. Part 2. Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist. 2 (10): 287-293 - get paper here
  • Ineich, I., & Böhme, W. 2024. Was it premature to declare the giant Tongan Ground Skink Tachygyia microlepis extinct? Salamandra 60 (1): 82–93 - 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
  • SCHOOLS, M., & HEDGES, S. B. 2024. A new forest lizard fauna from Caribbean islands (Squamata, Diploglossidae, Celestinae). Zootaxa, 5554(1): 1-306 - get paper here
  • Schools, M., Kasprowicz, A., & Hedges, S. B. 2022. Phylogenomic data resolve the historical biogeography and ecomorphs of Neotropical forest lizards (Squamata, Diploglossidae). Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution, 107577 - get paper here
  • SCHOOLS, MOLLY & S. BLAIR HEDGES 2021. Phylogenetics, classification, and biogeography of the Neotropical forest lizards (Squamata, Diploglossidae). Zootaxa 4974 (2): 201–257 - get paper here
  • Schwartz, A. 1971. A new species of bromeliad-inhabiting galliwasp (Sauria: Anguidae) from Jamaica. Breviora (371): 1-10 - get paper here
  • Schwartz, A. & Henderson, R.W. 1991. Amphibians and Reptiles of the West Indies. University of Florida Press, Gainesville, 720 pp.
  • Wilson, Byron S. 2011. Conservation of Jamaican amphibians and reptiles. In: Hailey et al., eds, Conservation of Caribbean Island Herpetofaunas Volume 2: 273-310 - get paper here
 
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