Annotated checklist and distribution of the lizards of Iran Author Šmíd, Jiří Author Moravec, Jiří Author Kodym, Petr Author Kratochvíl, Lukáš Author Yousefkhani, Seyyed Saeed Hosseinian Author Rastegar-Pouyani, Eskandar jirismd@gmail.com. Author Frynta, Daniel text Zootaxa 2014 2014-08-20 3855 1 1 97 journal article 4341 10.11646/zootaxa.3855.1.1 1f4f2c28-d4fa-487a-bf83-988cc35518ea 1175-5326 4929701 0E2D2B7C-7A96-4CAB-87F2-87A785F88D7F Eremias Fitzinger, 1834 A species-rich genus containing currently 35 species ( Uetz 2013 ). The distribution spans from E Europe to E China and Korea , most species occur in Central Asia, China , and on the Iranian Plateau. The genus is traditionally divided into five subgenera as proposed by Szczerbak (1974) : Eremias , Ommateremias, Pareremias , Rhabderemias , Scapteira . This division is supported by the hemipenial morphology ( Arnold 1986b ), but species assignment to individual subgenera remains inconsistent ( Arnold 1986b ; Anderson 1999 ; Guo et al. 2011 ). In addition, Scapteira and Rhabderemias were reconstructed as polyphyletic ( Guo et al. 2011 ). Many phylogenetic studies failed to find sister group to Eremias . The genus was recognized as a part of a clade containing the Palearctic genera Acanthodactylus , Mesalina , Omanosaura and Ophisops and the Sub-Saharan Adolfus and Holaspis on the basis of both morphological and genetic data ( Arnold 1989 ; Mayer & Pavlicev 2007 ; Hipsley et al. 2009 ). Latest phylogeny of all squamate reptiles ( Pyron et al. 2013 ) recovered Eremias as a sister to the South African lacertids.