Additional Amphibians And Reptiles From The Phnom Samkos Wildlife Sanctuary In Northwestern Cardamom Mountains, Cambodia, With Comments On Their Taxonomy And The Discovery Of Three New Species
Author
Grismer, L. Lee
Author
Neang, Thy
Author
Chav, Thou
Author
Wood, Perry L.
Author
Jr
Author
Oaks, Jamie R.
text
Raffles Bulletin of Zoology
2008
2008-02-29
56
1
161
175
journal article
10.5281/zenodo.5338697
2345-7600
5338697
Leiolepis belliana
(Gray, 1827)
(
Fig. 15
)
Material examined. –
LSUHC 7955–66
,
7970–71
: Che Teal Chrum,
9–11 Aug.2006
.
Remarks. –
Fourteen specimens (
seven males
, SVL
68–83 mm
;
seven females
, SVL
61–103 mm
) match
Smith’s (1935)
and
Taylor’s (1963)
diagnoses and descriptions of
Leiolepis belliana belliana
[thereby separating them from
L. reevesi
(Gray, 1831)
and
L. guttata
Cuvier, 1829
] from
Thailand
in having 7–12 scales across the undersurface of the tibia at the midline; ventral scales as broad as three or four dorsal scales; widely scattered light spots on the dorsum lacking black edges that do not form a dark, dorsal reticulum; and thin, cream- colored, vertebral and dorsolateral stripes. They differ from a series of
L. belliana
(LSUHC 4844–48, 4858–64, 6810, 6822, 6835–36, 6842, 6887, 7492, 7595) from northern West
Malaysia
near the
type
locality of Seberang Peri in having much smaller dorsal spots and thinner dorsal stripes; less blue on the head, neck, and forelimbs; the black bars on the flanks are wider than the orange bars instead of the reverse; and they lack an ontogenetic change in color pattern in that the complete striping pattern is retained into adulthood.
Fig. 14.
Takydromus sexlineatus
from Che Teal Chrum.
The only other report of
Leiolepis
from the Cardamom Mountains were sight records of
L. reevesi
(Swan & Daltry, 2002)
from the vicinity of Aural Village in the northeastern Cardamoms. We collected an additional series of
Leiolepis
(LSUHC 7979–87, 8000–01) 46.5 km east of Che Teal Chrum and
165 km
west of Aural Village from a mine field south of Pursat (
12º18.632'N
103º31.677'E
) that approach the colour pattern of
L. reevesi
in having slightly more enlarged dorsal spots and stripes and having only faint dark bars in the flanks. However, they match
L. belliana
in scale morphology (
Taylor, 1963
). An additional collection (LSUHC 8003–08) was made further east at Tbeng (
11º52.862'N
104º36.463'E
)
165 km
east of Che Teal Chrum and
43 km
east of Aural Village that look even more like
L. reevesi
in having wider dorsal spots whose edges are fused in some places, even wider dorsal stripes, and less dark barring in the flanks. Scale morphology, however, still matches
L. belliana
.
Based on this and additional material we examined from southern
Vietnam
(IEBR 1575–76; LSUDPC 1959, 2006), we suspect that
L. belliana
and
L. reevesi
may grade into one another across southern
Cambodia
and on into southern
Vietnam
, suggesting the two forms may be a single species as previously considered by
Smith (1935)
and
Taylor (1963)
. Owing to the more northerly distribution of
L. reevesi
throughout southern
China
,
Laos
, and eastern
Thailand
(Chan-ard et al., 1999:134; Zhao & Adler, 1993), coupled with the variation reported here in populations from southern
Cambodia
, it is unlikely that
L. reevesi
occurs in the northeastern Cardamoms juxtaposed between two populations of
L. belliana
.
The specimens from Che Teal Chrum were collected by residents of the village, who use this species as a food source. Lizards were dug out of holes in open, grassy areas surrounding the village.