Microgecko chabaharensis GHOLAMIFARD, RASTEGAR-POUYANI, RASTEGAR-POUYANI, KHOSRAVANI, YOUSEFKHANI & ORAEI, 2016
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Microgecko chabaharensis
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| Higher Taxa | Gekkonidae, Gekkota, Sauria, Squamata (lizards: geckos) |
| Subspecies | |
| Common Names | E: Chabahar Dwarf Gecko |
| Synonym | Microgecko chabaharensis GHOLAMIFARD, RASTEGAR-POUYANI, RASTEGAR-POUYANI, KHOSRAVANI, YOUSEFKHANI & ORAEI 2016 Microgecko helenae — ŠMÍD et al. 2014: 23 |
| Distribution | SE Iran (Baluchestan) Type locality: Rasoul Abad village, at 25°28'08.0''N, 060°29'37.0''E and 27 m above sea level (a.s.l.), between Chabahar and Konarak, Chabahar County, Sistan and Baluchestan Province, southeastern Iran |
| Reproduction | oviparous (manual imputation, fide Zimin et al. 2022) |
| Types | Holotype: SUHC 1273, adult male, collected on 16 May 2012. Paratypes. SUHC 1274, adult female, collected at the same locality as the holotype on 16 May 2012; RUZM GT.11.54, adult female, from Rezuiyeh (28°19'20.74"N, 54°35'20.48"E., 1155 m a.s.l.), about 40 km east of Haji Abad, the capital of Zarrin Dasht County, Fars Province, southern Iran, collected on 12 September 2014. |
| Diagnosis | Diagnosis: Microgecko chabaharensis sp. nov. (Figs. 2–3) is a small gecko with a maximum snout-vent length of 28.5 mm. The species possesses all diagnostic characters of the genus Microgecko (in the sense of Kluge, 1967). Superficially, M. chabaharensis sp. nov. differs from all known congeners by having a dorsum without any pattern (distinct or indistinct dark crossbars, and white spots) (Figs. 2–3), with the exception of populations of M. h. helenae (Fig. 5) from southwestern Iran without any pattern on their dorsum. Microgecko chabaharensis sp. nov. has three pairs of postmental shields and therefore differs from M. latifi (no postmentals), M. helenae (one pair of postmentals) and M. depressus (no postmentals or only one pair of very small postmentals). Since the new species occurs in the distributional range of M. persicus (especially M. p. persicus) in southern and southeastern Iran, it is distinguished from M. persicus (M. p. bakhtiari, M. p. persicus and M. p. euphorbiacola) by possessing a distinctive unpatterned dorsum (versus dorsum with distinct dark crossbars in M. persicus) as subspecies of M. persicus are distinguished from each other mainly based on the ratio of crossbar width to width of the interspaces (see Figs. 2–3 versus Fig. 6). Also M. chabaharensis has three pairs of postmental shields (two pairs of large postmentals and the third smaller pair) versus two pairs of postmental shields in M. persicus. For additional comparison see Table 1 and Figures 7–8 (in Gholamifard et al. 2016). |
| Comment | Distribution: for a map see GHOLAMIFARD et al 2019: 436 (Fig. 1). |
| Etymology | The species is named after the region where the holotype was collected (Chabahar, Sistan and Baluchestan Province, Southeastern Iran) and the Latin ‘-ensis,’ meaning ‘from’ or ‘belonging to’. |
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