Eremias kakari, Masroor, Khisroon, Khan, Jablonski, 2020, Masroor, Khisroon, Khan, Jablonski, 2020

Jablonski, Daniel & Masroor, Rafaqat, 2021, First record of Eremias kakari Masroor et al., 2020 (Squamata: Lacertidae) for Afghanistan, Bonn zoological Bulletin 70 (1), pp. 63-65 : 63-64

This single specimen of E. kakari (ZFMK-H 8553;

currently stored as E. fasciata ) was collected in Urgun, Paktika Province (32.858° N, 69.146° E, ~ 2300 m a.s.l.) during July 1972 by Clas Naumann, the former director of the ZFMK who carried out zoological research in Afghanistan. The examined specimen is an adult male with the following morphological characters that fully correspond with the diagnostic characters of E. kakari presented by Masroor et al. (2020; measurements in mm): snout-vent length (SVL = 58.32), tail length (TL = 91.0), head length (HL = 12.93), head width (HW = 6.74), head height (HH = 6.60), trunk length (TrL = 18.41), hindlimb length (HLL = 32.27), femur length (FL = 8.7), crus length (CL = 8.24), forelimb length (FLL = 20.7), length of humerus and radius (HRL = 12.35), length of femoral pore row (LFPR = 7.29), width of space between femoral pore rows (LFPS = 1.8), length of frontal scale (FrL = 3.2), maximum width of frontal scale (FrW = 2.4), length of pileus (Lpil = 12.24), head length from snout tip to the anterior edge of collar (NL = 16.5), length of supranasal suture (SNL = 0.5), length of frontonasal (FNL = 1.5), length of prefrontal (PFL = 1.56), width of prefrontal (PFW = 1.45), number of supralabials (SL = 10), number of infralabials (IL = 7), number of dorsal scales on midbody (DS = 49), maximum number of scales across mid-belly in a single row in the widest part (VL = 12), number of ventral scales in a single row (VT = 32), gulars, from chin shields to the collar (G = 26), number of collar scales (C = 8), scales around ninth and tenth caudal whorl posterior to the vent (NCWS = 18), number of supralabials anterior to subocular (SLAS = 6), number of femoral pores (FP = 17), number of scales separating femoral pore rows (FPS = 4), subdigital lamellae under 4th toe (SDLT 4 th = 23), number of scales around 4th toe at penultimate phalanx (SA 4 th = 3), subdigital lamellae under 4th finger (SDLF 4 th = 16), contact of fifth maxillary/chin shield with infralabial (FMIL = yes), subocular in contact with a mouth (SOM = yes), contact of frontal and supraoculars (FSO = no), contact of infranasal with rostral (INTR = yes).

After the description of E. kakari , we found the above-mentioned museum specimen ZFMK-H 8553, morphologically determined as E. fasciata . The collecting locality of the specimen is, however, far away from the known records of E. fasciata (~ 400 km airline) in the Afghan part of the Sistan Basin (see Wagner et al. 2016 and Fig. 2 of this study). We have considered it as a remarkable range extension of E. fasciata for the country suggesting that the collected specimen ZFMK-H 8553 could be a different species. Due to the relatively close distance to the type locality of E. kakari (~ 200 km airline) and its presence in the same mountain range, we correctly expected that it could be conspecific to E. kakari . Moreover, ZFMK-H 8553 was collected in an area that does not represent the typical habitats known for E. fasciata . Eremias fasciata is characteristic for rather lower-lying desert areas, where it inhabits gravely hamada, salt-encrusted silt, drifting loess, silty alluvium, and sandy plains with bushes ( Anderson 1999, Khan 2006), while E. kakari is, based on current information, mostly a mountain species inhabiting rocky habitats ( Masroor et al. 2020). Such habitat characteristic for E. fasciata corresponds with the environment in the Sistan Basin, and for E. kakari in Urgun, respectively.

Interestingly, specimens of E. fasciata from southern Afghanistan differ also morphologically (e.g., number of dark stripes on the body) from the original species description from the Iranian type locality in Saidabad , southwest of Kerman ( Anderson 1999). Therefore, the situation needs further integrative research to find out whether the morphological variability in E. fasciata is only environmentally inducted or whether divergent evolution takes place. Nevertheless, E. kakari is the 106 th species of reptile fauna recorded from Afghanistan, 17 th species in the family Lacertidae and 13 th species of the genus Eremias (see Jablonski et al. 2019b).

Figures

Fig. 2. The distribution records of Eremias kakari (ZFMK-H 8553) and E. fasciata from Afghanistan with the designation and the airline distance of the type locality of E. kakari from Tanishpa in Pakistan and from the nearest records of E. fasciata from the Sistan Basin in Afghanistan (Wagner et al. 2016): 1 = 6 km NW Delaran, Farah Province (CAS 120400-04); 2 = 64 km W Kandahar, Kandahar Province (CAS 120398-99); 3 = Pirzada, Kandahar Province (ZMUC R-4594); 4 = 5 mi downstream from Girishk, Dasht-i-Margo Area, Chah-i-Angir, Helmand Province (CAS 84684-88); 5 = 56 km S and 10 km E of Darweshan, Helmand Province (CAS 120397). CAS = California Academy of Sciences, USA; ZMUC = Zoological Museum, University of Copenhagen, Denmark.