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Alopoglossus copii BOULENGER, 1885

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Higher TaxaAlopoglossidae, Sauria, Gymnophthalmoidea, Squamata (lizards)
Subspecies 
Common NamesE: Drab Shade Lizard 
SynonymAlopoglossus copii BOULENGER 1885: 383
Alopoglossus copii — DUELLMAN 1978: 210
Alopoglossus copii — CASTOE et al. 2004
Alopoglossus copii — KÖHLER et al. 2012
Alopoglossus copii — HERNÁNDEZ-MORALES et al. 2020 
DistributionColombia (Amazonas), N Peru, Ecuador, elevation 310–1390 m.

Type locality: Canelos and Pallatanga, Ecuador  
Reproductionoviparous 
TypesSyntypes: BMNH 1946.8.31.58-59, 1946.9.8.17-18 (4) 
DiagnosisDiagnosis (genus): Members of Alopoglossus (=Alopoglossidae) can be distinguished from other gymnophthalmoids by: (i) having the tongue entirely covered by oblique plicae (only partially covered by oblique plicae or covered with scale-like papillae in other gymnophthalmoids); (ii) cristae cranii of the frontal forming a tubular structure (flanged in Gymnophthalmus and Heterodactylus); (iii) the presence of postorbitofrontal (also present in Calyptommatus, Dryadosaura, Anotosaura, Colobosauroides, Ameiva, Cnemidophorus, Dicrodon, Dracaena, Kentropyx and Teius); (iv) the borders of the palatine process curved divergently and its distal tip truncated (in other Gymnophthalmoidea, this process has convergent or parallel borders according to Hernandez-Morales et al., 2019); and (v) hemipenis without mineralized structures (Teiidae shows the same condition but most gymnophthalmids have mineralized structures in their hemipenis) [from HERNÁNDEZ-MORALES et al. 2020].


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CommentDistribution: see map in KÖHLER et al. 2012. Not in Costa Rica fide F. Bolaños (pers. comm.). Not in Panama or elsewhere in Central America (P. Bowles, pers. comm., 17 Oct 2011).

Type species: Alopoglossus copii BOULENGER 1885: 383 is the type species of the genus Alopoglossus BOULENGER 1885.

Key: Ribeiro-Júnior 2018, 2020 provide keys to all Alopoglossus (without Ptychologlossus which was synonymized with Alopoglossus by HERNÁNDEZ-MORALES et al. 2020).

Synonymy: Ptychoglossus and Alopoglossus were synonymized by HERNÁNDEZ-MORALES et al. 2020), which was not adopted by all following authors (e.g. Ribeiro-Júnior et al. 2021, Meiri et al. 2021, see also Peloso et al. 2021).

Type genus: Alopoglossus BOULENGER 1885 is the type genus of the family Alopoglossidae GOICOECHEA et al. 2016. For a list of characters distinguishing the genera Alopoglossus, Cercosaura, Pantodactylus, Leposoma, see Ruibal 1952: 521. 
EtymologyNamed in honor of Edward Drinker Cope (1840-1897), US American palaeontologist, herpetologist and ichthyologist.

The genus was named after Greek alopos (ἄλοπος), not scutched + Greek glossa (γλώσσα), tongue. ["...Tongue moderately elongate, arrow-headed, without imbricate scale-like papilla, these being replaced by oblique plice converging towards the median line…]. 
References
  • Betancourth-Cundar, Mileidy & Aquiles Gutiérrez Zamora 2010. ASPECTOS ECOLÓGICOS DE LA HERPETOFAUNA DEL CENTRO EXPERIMENTAL AMAZÓNICO, PUTUMAYO, COLOMBIA ECOTRÓPICOS 23 (2): 61-78 - 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
  • Castoe, T.A.; Doan, T.M. & Parkinson, C.L. 2004. Data partitions and complex models in Bayesian analysis: the phylogeny of Gymnophthalmid lizards. Systematic Biology 53 (3): 448-469 - get paper here
  • Catenazzi, A., and P. J. Venegas 2012. Anfibios y reptiles/Amphibians and reptiles. in: N. Pitman, E. Ruelas Inzunza, D. Alvira, C. Vriesendorp, D. K. Moskovits, Á. del Campo, T. Wachter, D. F. Stotz, S. Noningo Sesén, E. Tuesta Cerrón, y/and R. C. Smith, eds. Perú: Cerros de Kampankis. R The Field Museum, Chicago, pp. 106–117, 260–271, 348–365 - get paper here
  • Duellman, W. E. 1978. The biology of an equatorial herpetofauna in Amazonian Ecuador. Misc. Publ. Univ. Kans. Mus. Nat. Hist. 65: 1-352 - get paper here
  • Duellman,W.E. & Mendelson III, J.R. 1995. Amphibians and reptiles from Northern Departamento Loreto, Peru: Taxonomy and Biogeography. Univ. Kansas Sci. Bull. 55 (10): 329-376 - get paper here
  • Goicoechea, N., Frost, D. R., De la Riva, I., Pellegrino, K. C. M., Sites, J., Rodrigues, M. T. and Padial, J. M. 2016. Molecular systematics of teioid lizards (Teioidea/Gymnophthalmoidea: Squamata) based on the analysis of 48 loci under tree-alignment and similarity-alignment. Cladistics, doi: 10.1111/cla.12150 - get paper here
  • Hernández-Morales, C., Sturaro, M.J., Nunes, P.M.S., Lotzkat, S. and Peloso, P.L. 2020. A species‐level total evidence phylogeny of the microteiid lizard family Alopoglossidae (Squamata: Gymnophthalmoidea). Cladistics - get paper here
  • Köhler, Gunther; Hans-Helmut Diethert, and Milan Veselý 2012. A Contribution To the Knowledge of the Lizard Genus Alopoglossus (Squamata: Gymnophthalmidae). Herpetological Monographs 26 (1): 173-188. - get paper here
  • MEIRI, SHAI; MARCO ANTONIO RIBEIRO-JUNIOR, & ANTOINE FOUQUET 2021. Science may be better served by sticking to scientific issues rather than by calling authors holding different opinions names. Zootaxa 5047 (2): 195–196 - get paper here
  • Peloso, P., Sturaro, M.J., Nunes, P.M.S., Lotzkat, S. & Morales, C.S. 2021. Conservatism as an unjustifiable justification for the recognition of paraphyletic taxa: the case of Alopoglossidae. Zootaxa 5016 (1): 147–150 - get paper here
  • Ribeiro-Junior, M. A., Choueri, E., Lobos, S., Venegas, P., Torres-Carvajal, O. and Werneck, F. 2020. Eight in one: morphological and molecular analyses reveal cryptic diversity in Amazonian alopoglossid lizards (Squamata: Gymnophthalmoidea). Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 190 (1): 227–270 - 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
  • Torres-Carvajal O, Pazmiño-Otamendi G, Salazar-Valenzuela D. 2019. Reptiles of Ecuador: a resource-rich portal, with a dynamic checklist and photographic guides. Amphibian & Reptile Conservation 13 (1): [General Section]: 209–229 (e178) - get paper here
 
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