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Anolis sericeus HALLOWELL, 1856

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Higher TaxaAnolidae, Iguania, Sauria, Squamata (lizards)
Subspecies 
Common NamesE: Silky Anole
S: Abaniquillo Punto Azul 
SynonymAnolis sericeus HALLOWELL 1856: 227
Anolis sallaei GÜNTHER 1859
Anolis sallaei — GÜNTHER 1860: 493
Anolis longicauda HALLOWELL 1861: 481 (nomen dubium fide KÖHLER & VESELY 2010)
Anolis Cumingii PETERS 1863: 140 (nomen dubium, fide NICHOLSON et al. 2012)
Anolis heliactin COPE 1864: 173
Anolis williamsii BOCOURT 1870: 16
Anolis Jacobi BOCOURT 1873
Anolis sallaei — BOULENGER 1885: 79
Anolis cumingii — BOULENGER 1885: 80
Anolis ustus — BOULENGER 1885: 73
Norops sericeus — GÜNTHER 1885: 48
Anolis heliactin — BOULENGER 1885: 72
Anolis sallaei — DUNN 1930: 18
Anolis kidderi RUTHVEN 1933
Norops sericeus — BARBOUR 1934
Anolis kidderi — GAIGE 1936
Anolis sericeus — SMITH & TAYLOR 1950: 66
Anolis heliactin — SMITH & TAYLOR 1950: 67
Anolis cumingii — SMITH & : 67
Anolis sallaei — BRATTSTROM & ADIS 1952
Anolis sallaei — WERLER & SMITH 1952: 556
Anolis kidderi — WERLER & SMITH 1952: 556
Anolis sallaei — TAYLOR 1952
Anolis sericeus — STUART 1963
Anolis sericeus — PETERS & OREJAS-MIRANDA 1970
Anolis longicauda — PETERS et al. 1970: 59
Anolis williamsii — PETERS & DONOSO-BARROS 1970: 69
Anolis cummingi — FITCH & HENDERSON 1973: 127
Anolis heliactin — FITCH & HENDERSON 1973: 127
Norops longicauda — VILLA et al. 1988
Norops sericeus — VILLA et al. 1988
Norops sericeus — LINER 1994
Norops cumingii — LINER 1994
Anolis cumingii — BAUER et al. 1995: 58
Norops sericeus — KÖHLER 2000: 63
Norops sericeus — NICHOLSON 2002
Anolis cumingii — LINER 2007
Anolis sericus [sic] — LINER & CASAS-ANDREU 2008: 44
Norops sericeus — NICHOLSON et al. 2012
Norops williamsii — NICHOLSON et al. 2012
Anolis sericeus — LARA-TUFIÑO et al. 2016
Norops sericeus — NICHOLSON et al. 2018
Norops williamsii — NICHOLSON et al. 2018
Norops sericeus — CRUZ-ELIZALDE et al. 2022
Anolis sericeus — HEIMES 2022 
DistributionMexico (Tamaulipas, Hidalgo, San Luis Potosí, Veracruz, Tabasco, Campeche, Quintana Roo, N Oaxaca, Quéretaro, Puebla, Guanajuato), Guatemala, Costa Rica, elevation 0-1200 m.

Type locality: “El Euceros le Jalapa, Mexico”; Veracruz.

jacobi: Mexico; type locality: “Veracruz”

kidderi: Mexico; type locality: “quinta at Merida, Yucatan”

longicauda: Nicaragua; Type locality: Nicaragua.

cumingii: Mexico (exact range unclear fide SMITH & TAYLOR 1950); Type locality: Mexico.

williamsi: Brazil (Bahia); Type locality: Bahia, Brazil (probably in error)  
Reproductionoviparous 
TypesHolotype: lost, originally ANSP (Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia); now lost (fide SMITH & TAYLOR 1950).
Holotype: MNHN-RA 2406 [jacobi]
Holotype: ANSP 7884; ‘‘dried and now ’’unrecognizable” (Barbour, 1934: 150) [longicauda]
Holotype: ZMB 4105 [cumingii]
Holotype: ANSP 7914; Mexico [heliactin]
Holotype: UMMZ 72851; MCZ 72851 fide Köhler et al. 2014: 190 [kidderi]
Holotype: BMNH [sallaei]
Holotype: MNHN 1374 [williamsi] 
DiagnosisDiagnosis: A medium-sized species (SVL in largest specimen 50.0 mm) of the genus Anolis (sensu Poe, 2004) that differs from all Central American species of this genus except A. wellbornae and the new species described here by the following combination of characters: male dewlap yellowish orange with large blue-to-purple blotch; short legged (longest toe of adpressed hindlimb reaches to a point between shoulder and tympanum, rarely beyond tympanum); tympanum very small (less than one fourth the size of interparietal plate); anterior superciliary conspicuously large and elongate; and ventral scales strongly keeled and mucronate. Anolis sericeus differs from A. wellbornae by having a male dewlap that is smaller than 50 mm2 (larger than 100 mm2 in male A. wellbornae) and a female dewlap of approximately the same size as the male dewlap (no dewlap in females of A. wellbornae). In addition, the hemipenis of A. sericeus has no asulcate ridge (such a ridge present in A. wellbornae). For differences between A. sericeus and the new species described here, see the Diagnosis section for the new species [from KÖHLER & VESELY 2010].


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CommentSynonymy: BOULENGER 1885 noted that A. binotatus and Anolis cumingii are ”very closely allied to, and perhaps not specifically distinct from A. sallaei”. Anolis ustus wellbornae AHL 1940 has been removed from the synonymy of A. sericeus and revalidated by KÖHLER & VESELY 2010. Lee (1980) concluded from the geographic variation of anoles allied to sericeus that the ‘‘recognition of subspecies cannot be justified on morphological grounds.’’ Barbour (1934) placed A. longicauda in the synonymy of A. sericeus. It is not listed by KÖHLER 2000 and listed as doubtful by BOULENGER (1885: 11, Cat. Liz. II). Specimens from outside of Mexico have been assigned to A. wellbornae and A. unilobatus by KÖHLER & VESELY 2010. A. cumingii was synonymized with A. sericeus by KÖHLER 2012. Anolis ustus COPE 1864 has been considered as a synonym of A. sericeus but revalidated by Lara-Tufiño et al. 2016. Poe et al. 2017 listed A. williamsi “tentatively” as synonym of A. sericeus; BOULENGER 1885 listed A. sallaei as a synonym of Norops sericeus.

Distribution: According to Sunyer 2014 the populations of A. sericeus in Nicaragua have been assigned to A. unilobatus, hence he did not list sericeus for Nicaragua. Listed for Yucatan by Lee 1996 but not by GONZÁLEZ-SÁNCHEZ et al. 2017. Populations from El Salvador, previously considered as N. sericeus (e.g. by Köhler 2008) are now assigned to other species. Not in Nicaragua fide Sunyer & Martínez-Fonseca 2023.

Abundance in Honduras: rare

Species group: Norops auratus Species Group (fide Nicholson et al. 2012) 
EtymologyThe Latin name sericeus means "silky or silken," and essentially describes the textured skin of this species (Lemos-Espinal & Dixon 2013).

A. s. sallaei was named after Auguste Sallé (1820-1896). 
References
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