Monilesaurus rouxii (DUMÉRIL & BIBRON, 1837)
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Monilesaurus rouxii
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| Higher Taxa | Agamidae (Draconinae), Sauria, Iguania, Squamata (lizards) |
| Subspecies | |
| Common Names | E: Roux's Forest Lizard, Forest Blood Sucker |
| Synonym | Calotes rouxii DUMÉRIL & BIBRON 1837: 407 Calotes rouxii — SMITH 1935: 206 Calotes rouxii — BOULENGER 1885: 330 Calotes ellioti STOLICZKA 1872 (not of GÜNTHER; fide SMITH 1935) Calotes rouxii — WERMUTH 1967: 40 Calotes rouxii — MOODY 1980 Calotes rouxi — MANTHEY & SCHUSTER 1999: 38 Calotes rouxi — HALLERMANN et al. 2001 Calotes rouxi — BARTS & WILMS 2003 Calotes rouxii — GANESH et al. 2018 Monilesaurus rouxii — PAL et al. 2018: 427 |
| Distribution | India (Bombay Presidency, Travancore, W Bengala, Gujarat, Goa, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Kerala, Western Ghats, Tamil Nadu) Type locality: Indes orientales; restricted to India by SMITH 1935. |
| Reproduction | oviparous |
| Types | Syntypes: MNHN RA 6894 and MNHN-RA-1994.1857 (formerly MNHN-RA 6894A) |
| Diagnosis | Diagnosis (genus). Monilesaurus gen. nov. can be easily diagnosed from all members of draconinae lizards from the Indian subcontinent except Psammophilus in having an antehumeral fold, which mostly extends below the dewlap forming a fused fold on the shoulder and the neck. It differs from Psammophilus in having a dorso-laterally compressed body and lower number of scales on the mid-body. Supratympanic spines are present, in the form of two separated spines vs clusters in Calotes and Psammophilus. From Microauris gen. nov. by having a relatively large tympanum (Fig. 9c vs. 9b). Scales on head large uniform shield like (vs small, sub-triangular) (Fig. 10a vs 10d). Monilesaurus gen. nov. can be easily diagnosed from the genera Otocryptis, Sarada Deepak, Karanth & Giri, 2016 and Sitana Cuvier, 1829 by the presence of a well-developed fifth toe (Smith, 1935; Deepak et al. 2016). Monilesaurus gen. nov. differs from Mantheyus phuwuanensis by the absence of femoral pores (Manthey & Nabhitabhata, 1991; Ananjeva & Stuart 2001); from the members of the genus Bronchocela by the presence of postorbital and supratympanic spines (Hallermann & Böhme 2000); from Cophotis, Ceratophora, Lyriocephalus, Ptyctolaemus Peters, 1864, Phoxophrys Hubrecht, 1881 by the presence of external tympanum (Boulenger, 1885; Smith, 1935; Inger, 1960; Pethiyagoda & Manamendra-Arachchi 1998; Schulte II et al. 2004; Bahir & Silva 2005; Manamendra-Arachchi et al. 2006; Samarawickrama et al. 2006). Monilesaurus gen. nov. can be diagnosed from Japalura, Gray 1853 by the absence of heterogenous dorsal scales and short and thick nuchal scales; from Salea Gray, 1845 (S. anamallayana and S. horsfieldii) by the presence of small regular lateral scales and the absence of enlarged plate like scales between the eye and tympanum (Smith, 1935); from Complictus nigrigularis (Ota & Hikida, 1991), Hypsicalotes kinabaulensis (de Grijs, 1937), Malayadracon robinsonii (Boulenger, 1908), Oriocalotes (Günther, 1864) Pseudocophotis (Manthey & Grossmann, 1997) and Pseudocalotes by the absence of enlarged row of suborbital scales (Smith, 1935; Taylor 1963; Ota & Hikida, 1991; Manthey & Denzer 1992; Inger & Steubing 1994; Ota & Hikida, 1996; Hallermann & Böhme 2000; Manthey & Denzer, 2000; Hallermann & McGuire 2001; Leong 2001; Manamendra-Arachchi et al. 2006; Samarawickrama et al. 2006; Ananjeva et al. 2007; Hallermann & Böhme 2007; Das & Lakim 2008; Hallermann et al. 2010; Mahony 2010; Harvey et al. 2014; Denzer et al. 2015; Grismer LL et al. 2016; Harvey et al. 2017). (Pal et al. 2018, to which all figures refer). |
| Comment | Synonymy partly after WERMUTH 1967. Distribution and type locality: The only precise locality of a specimen in the catalogue of British Museum is given as “Matheran, Bombay Presidency” (Boulenger 1885, 1890); Smith (1935) gives the range of M. rouxii comb. nov. as “Bombay Presidency (Matheran, Khandala, Kanara, Jog); Travancore”. Of these, other than “Travencore” all the other localities are from the northern and central Western Ghats (Pal et al. 2018: 427). Type species: Calotes rouxii DUMÉRIL & BIBRON 1837: 407 is the type species of the genus Monilesaurus PAL et al. 2018: 426. |
| Etymology | Named after (Jean Louis Florent) Polydore Roux (1792-1833), a French naturalist, painter, and later Curator, Museum d'Histoire Naturelle de Marseille (1819). The genus epithet is derived by adding the word ‘Monile’ meaning necklace in Latin referring to the distinct neck fold in this genus and the Greek word sauros meaning lizard which is latinized here as saurus. |
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