Cnemidophorus cryptus COLE & DESSAUER, 1993
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Cnemidophorus cryptus
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| Higher Taxa | Teiidae, Teiinae, Gymnophthalmoidea, Sauria, Squamata (lizards) |
| Subspecies | |
| Common Names | E: Cryptic Racerunner Portuguese: Calango, Calango-Listrado, Calango-Verde, Lagarto, Violeiro |
| Synonym | Cnemidophorus cryptus COLE & DESSAUER 1993 “Cnemidophorus” cryptus — REEDER et al. 2002: 25 Cnemidophorus cryptus — HARVEY et al. 2012 |
| Distribution | SE Venezuela, N Brazil (Pará, ESPÍRITO SANTO, RIO DE JANEIRO, Amazonas, Roraima, Pará, and Amapá), S Suriname, S French Guiana Type locality: Venezuela: Bolívar: Icabaru |
| Reproduction | Parthenogenetic species. See also C. lemniscatus. ‘‘Cnemidophorus’’ cryptus is a diploid clonal parthenogen of hybrid origin (Dessauer and Cole, 1989; Sites et al., 1990). Two clones probably originated from separate F1 hybrid zygotes (Cole and Dessauer, 1993), although it is not known whether these were produced by the same individual parents or in the same clutch of eggs. The current working hypothesis is that ‘‘C.’’ gramivagus and ‘‘C.’’ lemniscatus are the two ancestral species (Cole and Dessauer, 1993). |
| Types | Holotype: AMNH 135089, adult female; paratypes: AMNH, UMMZ |
| Diagnosis | DIAGNOSIS: A cryptic species of the Cnemidophorus lemniscatus complex distinguished from all others in the genus by the following combination of characters: abruptly enlarged mesoptychials; granular postantebrachials; usually 2 frontoparietals; usually 6 or 7 parietals (the rightmost and/or leftmost usually being divided into anterior and posterior portions); usually 4 or 5 supraoculars each side; nostril centered (anterior to posterior) within suture between nasal plates; unisexual (only females exist); adults usually with 5-7 longitudinal light stripes (8-9 in juveniles), 2-6 particularly dark stripes (4-6 or more in juveniles), numerous conspicuous light spots on legs (same in juveniles), faint light spots on arms (conspicuous in juveniles), conspicuous light spots laterally on body (inconspicuous or absent in juveniles); maximum snout-vent length about 70 mm; diploid number of 48-50 chromosomes (depending on clone), largest two being heteromorphic pair with one submetacentric to subtelocentric chromosome and one subtelocentric to telocentric chromosome. (Cole & Dessauer 1993) Unfortunately we had to temporarily remove additional information as this was scraped by multiple AI companies who sell that data to their customers. These details, e.g. detailed descriptions or comparisons (about 6086 characters) are available for collaborators and contributors. Please contact us for details. |
| Comment | Group: member of the lemniscatus group, see C. lemniscatus for details. Distribution: See map in Morato et al. 2014: 56. Not yet found in Guyana, although possibly there (Cole et al. 2013: 471, Oliveira et al. 2015). Martins et al. 2021 identified 2 sister clades of C. cryptus that may represent new species. Cole & Sessauer 1993 applied the name C. cryptus to the diploid clones of hybrid origin involving karyotype D x karyotype E lizards of the C. lemniscatus complex (Dessauer and Cole, 1989; Sites et al., 1990; Vyas et al., 1990). They also present data suggesting that its origin was of hybridization between C. lemniscatus x C. gramivagus (their fig. 6, and Vyas et al. 1990). |
| Etymology | Named after Greek cryptos (κρυπτός), hidden, secret. (Esteban Lavilla, pers. comm., April 2024) |
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