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Holcosus amphigrammus (SMITH & LAUFE, 1945)

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Higher TaxaTeiidae, Teiinae, Gymnophthalmoidea, Sauria, Squamata (lizards)
Subspecies 
Common NamesE: Rainbow Ameiva
S: Lagartija Metálica 
SynonymAmeiva undulata amphigramma SMITH & LAUFE 1945: 338
Ameiva undulata amphigramma SMITH & LAUFE 1946: 43
Ameiva undulata podarga SMITH & LAUFE 1946: 40
Ameiva undulata amphigramma — SMITH & TAYLOR 1950
Ameiva undulata podarga — SMITH & TAYLOR 1950
Ameiva undulata podarga — SMITH & BURGER 1950
Ameiva undulata amphigramma — SMITH & BURGER 1950
Ameiva undulata amphigramma — WERLER & SMITH 1952
Ameiva undulata podarga —STUART 1963
Ameiva undulata amphigramma —STUART 1963
Holcosus undulatus amphigrammus — HARVEY et al. 2012 (by implication)
Holcosus undulatus podargus — HARVEY et al. 2012 (by implication)
Holcosus amphigrammus — MEZA-LÁZARO et al. 2015
Holcosus amphigrammus — JOHNSON et al. 2017
Holcosus amphigrammus — LEMOS-ESPINAL et al. 2017
Holcosus amphigrammus — WOOLRICH-PIÑA et al. 2018
Holcosus amphigrammus — LEMOS-ESPINAL et al. 2018 
DistributionMexico (N Veracruz southward at low elevations to the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, westward into valleys extending into extreme E Oaxaca, NE Puebla; Tabasco, Tamaulipas, Nuevo León, San Luis Potosi, Querétaro).

Type locality: San Andrés Tuxtla, Veracruz.  
Reproductionoviparous 
TypesHolotype: FMNH 100020 (was EHT-HMS 11983), Hobart M. Smith collector
Holotype: FMNH 100050 (was EHT-HMS 14471) [podarga] 
DiagnosisDiagnosis: A member of the undulata group of Ameiva, closely related to u. stuarti and u. podarga; preanals in two rows; median gulars rather abruptly enlarged, arranged generally in a median row of 5 to 8 scales. Differs from u. podarga in having (1) usually (87%) no more than 2 of the 5 largest gulars divided or irregular, (2) usually (75%) 16 or more femoral pores in females; (3) considerable mottling on the back, and (4) an upper lateral light stripe which is never or rarely broken into light spots less than twice as wideasthedarkinterveningspaces. Differsfromu.stuartitosome extent in number of lamellae under the fourth toe (55% with 28 or more) , and in having fewer gulars of which more are irregular, but chiefly in pattern: (1) Adult males possess a conspicuous, broad, longitudinal, light, upper lateral stripe which may be broken into large spots not less than twice the width of intervening spaces; this character is discernible although indistinct in adult females, and is generally at least feebly evident in young males; (2) there is no continuous dorsolateral dark stripe, typically, although females may have it broken into spots or reduced in length or width; and (3) the dorsolateral light stripes completely disappear in adult males. Differs from u. stuarti and u. gaigeae, the only other races with two rows of preanals. chiefly in the possession of the upper lateral light stripe, abruptly enlarged gulars, and a smaller maximum size (Smith & Laufe 1946: 43). 
CommentDistribution of subspecies mainly from SMITH & TAYLOR 1950. See map in Smith & Laufe 1946 (Fig. 7) and Meza-Lázaro et al. 2015 (Fig. 1). Not in Nuevo León fide Nevárez-de los Reyes et al. 2016.

Subspecies: Echternacht (1971) suggested not to recognize any subspecies. By contrast, Meza-Lázaro et al. 2015 elevated all subspecies of H. undulatus to (evolutionary) species status, which is followed by many recent authors.

Synonymy: Schmidt & Stuart (1941) noted that the specimens of A. u. quadrilineata of Barbour & Noble (1915) actually represented A. pulchra.Echternacht (1971) synonymized H. u. thomasi with H. chaitzami. Meza-Lázaro et al. 2015 consider as an incontrovertible population of H. chaitzami only that from its type locality, and tentatively assigned the specimens from Comitán, Chiapas and Huehuetenango, Guatemala, to H. u. thomasi following Smith & Laufe (1946). Meza-Lázaro et al. 2015 synonymized amphigrammus and podargus. They also found several additional lineages that may be cryptic species. Southeastern H. u. dextrus formed a clade with H. u. undulatus and northwestern dextrus formed a clade with sinister. However, these populations were not formally synonymized. Similarly, Mexican, Guatemalan, and Honduran parvus formed a clade that included thomasi as sister to Mexican parvus. See Figs. 2 and 4 in Meza-Lázaro et al. 2015 for phylogenetic analyses.

Illustrations: Note that the photo legends of Mesoscincus managuae and Ameiva undulata in Leenders (2004) have been mixed up.

Species group: The H. undulatus group contains six species (Harvey, Ugueto & Gutberlet, 2012): H. chaitzami Stuart, 1942, H. festivus (Lichtenstein & Von Martens, 1856), H. leptophrys (Cope, 1893), H. niceforoi (Dunn, 1943), H. quadrilineatus (Hallowell, 1860) and H. undulatus (Wiegmann, 1834).

Relative abundance in Honduras: infrequent 
EtymologyThe specific name undulatus is a Latin word meaning wavy or undulating, in reference to the dorsolateral pattern. 
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