Gardiner's burrowing skink

Gardiner's burrowing skink
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Subphylum: Vertebrata
Class: Reptilia (paraphyletic)
(unranked): Sauria
Order: Squamata (paraphyletic)
Infraorder: Scincomorpha
Family: Scincidae
Subfamily: see text
Genus: Pamelaescincus
Greer, 1970[1]
Species: P. gardineri
Binomial name
Pamelaescincus gardineri
(Boulenger, 1909)
Synonyms
  • Scelotes gardineri
    Boulenger, 1909[2]
  • Amphiglossus gardineri
    — Vesey-Fitzgerald & Parker, 1947[3]
  • Pamelaescincus gardineri
    — Greer, 1970[1]
  • Scelotes gardineri
    — P. Evans & J. Evans, 1980[4]
  • Pamelaescincus gardineri
    — Austin & Arnold, 2006[5]

Gardiner's burrowing skink (Pamelaescincus gardineri ) is the only species (monotypic) of the skink genus Pamelaescincus.

Etymology

The generic name, Pamelaescincus, is in honor of Pamela, the older of Allen E. Greer's two sisters.[6]

The specific name, gardineri, is in honor of British zoologist John Stanley Gardiner.[6]

Taxonomy

P. gardineri is usually placed in the subfamily Scincinae, which seems to be paraphyletic. Probably quite close to Janetaescincus, it belongs to a major clade that does not seem to include the type genus Scincus. Thus, it will probably be eventually assigned to a new, yet-to-be-named subfamily.[5]

Geographic range

Pamelaescincus gardineri is found only in the Seychelles.

Habitat

The natural habitats of P. gardineri are subtropical or tropical dry forests and subtropical or tropical moist lowland forests, where it buries in the leaf litter and soil.

Conservation status

Populations of P. gardeneri are locally affected by introduced predators and habitat destruction, but unlike its relatives, it is not considered an endangered species by the IUCN.[7]

References

  1. 1 2 Greer, Allen E. 1970. The systematics and evolution of the Subsaharan Africa, Seychelles, and Mauritius Scincine Scincid lizards. Bulletin of the Museum of Comparative Zoology 140 (1): 1-24. (Pamelaescincus, new genus, pp. 17-18).
  2. ↑ Boulenger GA. 1909. A list of the freshwater fishes, batrachians and reptiles obtained by Mr. J. Stanley Gardiner's expedition to the Indian Ocean. Trans. Linn. Soc. 12: 291-300. (Scelotes gardineri, new species, pp. 298-300 + Plate 40, figure 5).
  3. ↑ Vesey-Fitzgerald, Desmond. 1947. Reptiles and amphibians from the Seychelles Archipelago. Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., Eleventh Series 14: 577-584.
  4. ↑ Evans PGH, Evans JB. 1980. The ecology of lizards on Praslin Islands, Seychelles. Journal of Zoology (London) 191 (2): 171-192.
  5. 1 2 Austin JJ, Arnold EN. (2006). Using ancient and recent DNA to explore relationships of extinct and endangered Leiolopisma skinks (Reptilia: Scincidae) in the Mascarene islands. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 39 (2): 503–511. doi:10.1016/j.ympev.2005.12.011 (HTML abstract)
  6. 1 2 Beolens B, Watkins M, Grayson M. 2011. The Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. xiii + 296 pp. ISBN 978-1-4214-0135-5. (Genus Pamelaescincus, p. 200; species P. gardineri, p. 97).
  7. ↑ Gerlach J, Ineich I. (1996). Pamelaescincus gardineri. 2006. IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. IUCN 2006. www.iucnredlist.org. Retrieved on 10 Jul 2007. Database entry includes justification why this species is of least concern.

External links


This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Friday, September 25, 2015. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.