Darevskia dryada (DAREVSKY & TUNIYEV, 1997)
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Darevskia dryada
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| Higher Taxa | Lacertidae, Lacertinae, Sauria, Lacertoidea, Squamata (lizards) |
| Subspecies | |
| Common Names | E: Charnali Lizard |
| Synonym | Lacerta dryada DAREVSKY & TUNIYEV 1997 Archaeolacerta (Caucasilacerta) dryada — SINDACO et al. 2000 Darevskia dryada — ANANJEVA et al. 2006: 83 Darevskia dryada — DORONIN 2015 Darevskia dryada — NCBI 2016 |
| Distribution | SW Republic of Georgia (NE foothills of the Pontic Ridge, within the boundery of area Adzharistan = Adzharia) Type locality: Adzharistan, Khelvachaury district, gorge of Charnali, W Republic of Georgia. |
| Reproduction | oviparous |
| Types | Holotype: SNP (also given as CNR), Sochi 1103 (7), adult male; Paratypes: ZISP 18809, 18810 |
| Diagnosis | Diagnosis (dryada): distinguished from related species by “body coloration, and some metric and meristic characters of pholidosis, in particular by the scutellation of the head temporal area” (see Fig. 3, Tables 1-3 in DAREVSKY & TUNIYEV 1997). Pileus comparatively longer, TS2 (longitudinal rows of temporal scales between tympanic and parietal plates), DS (dorsalia), SVL (greater size) and SLR (number of supralabial scales); and contrarily, comparatively smaller values of LS (longitudinal rows of scales on ventral surface of thigh between the femoral pores and the outer row of enlarged scales), COLL (collaria), and PA2 (number of circumanalia scales, surrounding the anal plate). Osteologically has more teeth, especially the dentary ones, without overlap among both forms. This is due to the clearly bigger heads of the D. dryada males (the different shape between male heads of both taxa is well depicted in Darevsky & Tuniyev, 1997; see Fig. 1). Also, the vertebral number in Darevskia is the primitive state (27), which also appears and tends to increase to 28 in D. clarkorum (even coexisting bilaterally in the same specimen). The clavicles are also open or closed (one case of each), whereas the closed ones are fairly rare in D. clarkorum (O. Arribas, pers. comm. 28 June 2021). |
| Comment | Synonymy: D. dryada is a synonym of Darevskia clarkorum fide SCHMIDTLER et al. (2002) but variously recognized as valid species or synonym by more recent authors. Hybridization: D. clarkorum (and D. dryada) possibly hybridize with D. rudis (DAREVSKY & TUNIYEV 1997). Distribution: populations from NE Turkey (vicinity of Hope) are indistinguishable from D. clarkorum and were assigned to this species, hence there is no dryada in Turkey (Arribas et al. 2021). |
| Etymology | named after Richard and Erica Clark who discovered these lizards in 1967, 20 km west of Borčka in eastern Turkey. D. dryada was named after the mythological creature inhabiting trees associated with the Teriary-relict forests of southern Colchis and having pronounced arboreal mode of life. |
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