Teratoscincus keyserlingii Strauch 1863

LECTOTYPE. ZIL 2396, designated by Szczerbak & Golubev (1986).

TYPE LOCALITY. Seri-Tschah [Sar Chah], South Khorasan Prov., Iran.

DISTRIBUTION. Iran, W Afghanistan, W Pakistan; isolated populations in Qatar and UAE.

DISTRIBUTION IN IRAN. Fig. 144. Central and eastern desert basins from Esfahan and Semnan Prov. south to Hormozgan and Sistan and Baluchistan Prov .

HABITAT. Sandy soil sometimes encrusted with salt. Anderson (1993) found all three Iranian species syntopic in the Zabol area ( northern Sistan and Baluchistan Prov.) .

REMARKS. This species was previously considered a subspecies of T. scincus (Schlegel, 1858), and although it is currently regarded as a full species (Macey et al. 2005; Mozaffari & Parham 2007; Gardner 2013), its elevation to species status has not been fully clarified yet. Teratoscincus zarudnyi Nikolsky, 1896 also described from Iran is a younger synonym of T. keyserlingii .

REFERENCES. Szczerbak & Golubev (1986, 1996); Anderson (1993, 1999); Manilo (1993); Macey et al. (2005).