Eremias nigrocellata Nikolsky, 1896

LECTOTYPE. ZIL 8800, designated by Szczerbak (1974).

TYPE LOCALITY. Not mentioned in the original description; given as Sistan, Iran by Szczerbak (1974).

DISTRIBUTION. A discontinuous range; the western part in NE Iran and S Turkmenistan is separated from the populations in N Afghanistan, SW Tajikistan, and S Uzbekistan.

DISTRIBUTION IN IRAN. Fig. 100. A belt along the Afghan and Turkmen borders from northernmost Sistan and Baluchistan Prov. through South Khorasan , and Khorasan Razavi to Semnan and Golestan Prov.

HABITAT. Hard loess soils, sometimes with admixture of sand or pebbles, and with ephemeral vegetation. The Iranian populations occur between 1300 and 1700 m a.s.l. (Leviton & Anderson 1970).

REMARKS. Some authors considered this species to be a subspecies of E. intermedia (Nikolsky 1903, 1907; Boulenger 1921) and even Anderson (1963, 1999) was not convinced that these two forms are distinct.

REFERENCES. Szczerbak (1974); Anderson (1999).