César Aguilar; Perry L. Wood Jr; Juan C. Cusi; Alfredo Guzmán; Frank Huari; Mikael Lundberg; Emma Mortensen; César Ramírez; Daniel Robles; Juana Suárez; Andres Ticona; Víctor J. Vargas; Pablo J. Venegas; Jack W. Sites Jr

“ It is the northernmost species of the subgenus Liolaemus.
Liolaemus chavin sp. n. was found active and under rocks in grassland and shrubland habitats at higher and lower elevations respectively (Fig. 8) . In Pampas de Huamani the new species was usually found basking on grass up to 60 cm above the ground, and when they were disturbed they escaped into the base of grass clumps. Individuals basking on rocks were very rare in all localities. On cloudy days we found this species inactive hidden in the base of grass clumps, although some individuals were also found inactive under rocks. ”

“ Although there are no field or experimental studies that have addressed this question in particular, one distributional pattern seems to be evident in the northern distributional limit of Liolaemus. For instance, on the Pacific Andean slopes at about latitude 15°S and south in Peru, viviparous Liolaemus species are present in lower, middle and higher elevations (C. Aguilar, personal observations) , and oviparous lizards (genera Phyllodactylus, Ctenoblepharys and Microlophus but not Stenocercus) are only present at lower and middle elevations. ”

“ If so, then a working hypothesis for the evolution of viviparity and placentation in some clades of Liolaemus is their relationship to the presence of these arid and hypoxic conditions. Arid environments in hypoxic middle and high elevations might be lethal to the development of oviparous lizard eggs. ”

“ A Ancash B Ayacucho C Cusco DLiolaemus tacnae and ELiolaemus walkeri. Table 1. "Binomial characters for females (F) and males (M) of focal populations of Liolaemus lizards sampled for this study. Character states useful for species discrimination are in bold, and states only assessed on adults are indicated with an asterisk." Adult males of Ancash (Fig. 3A) differ from Liolaemus tacnae (Fig. 3D) in having a melanistic belly, and again while fixed in our samples, BTI showed that up to 36% of the population may have the alternative state (P ≤ 0.05) . ”

“ However, assumptions are also pervasive in morphological and ENM analyses. Discovery of gaps in morphology assumes that discontinuities are not due polymorphisms, ontogenetic variation or phenotypic plasticity ( [28] , [7] ) , and ENM (especially those models based on background data and not true absence records) assumes that occupied distribution of a species is not reduced by biotic interactions and dispersal limitations ( [60] ) . ”

“ Males have white or yellow belly and throat covered completely with black spots, yellowish belly and throat with black spots on posterior third of belly, or a melanistic belly on posterior third and cloacal region, with black dots on a white throat; females have white belly and yellowish throat with faint black dots, yellowish belly and throat with faint black spots, or yellowish belly and throat without spots. Adult males have white, yellowish and yellow tails with a conspicuous ringed pattern ”

“ The Liolaemus walkeri model overlaps the known distribution of the Ancash and partially that of the Cusco samples (Fig. 6F) ; the two most important bioclimatic variables accounting for 84.2% of the contribution to the model are Precipitation of Driest Period and Precipitation of Wettest Period (Table 5) . In the permutation and jackknife tests, Precipitation of Wettest Period also was the most important variable. This suggests a relative wetter niche envelope relative to all other populations, and the AUC score (0.77 ± 0.08) suggests that the model prediction was reasonable (Fig. 7E) . ”

“ In our ML analysis, the clade (Liolaemus alticolor + Liolaemus incaicus) has unresolved relationships with Liolaemus ramirezae and the clade (Liolaemus robertmertensi + (Liolaemus gracilis + Liolaemus saxatilis) ) , and this latter clade has high BPP but low MLB support (Fig. 1) . Liolaemus abdalai and Liolaemus bibronii are recovered as sister taxa with high support, and this clade is sister to the clade (Liolaemus ramirezae + (Liolaemus incaicus + Liolaemus alticolor) + (Liolaemus robertmertensi + (Liolaemus gracilis + Liolaemus saxatilis) ) ) also with high support (Fig. 1) . ”

“ Normal tolerance intervals and distributional models showed overlap between all paired combinations of samples except for the Ayacucho vs. Liolaemus tacnae distributional models and niche identity tests showed statistical differences between all pairwise comparisons but Ancash vs. Cusco. Note that this is an extremely conservative approach; if we simply look at the data and count the number of “fixed” differences between all combinations of samples, we would conclude that the following pairs are unambiguously diagnosed: Ayacucho, Cusco and Liolaemus walkeri vs. ”

“ Few conventional morphological characters distinguish the new species from closely related taxa and this highlights the need to integrate other sources of data to erect strong hypothesis of species limits. A taxonomic key for known Peruvian species of the subgenus Lioalemus is provided. ”

“ At the type locality no sympatric species of reptiles were found, but four amphibians are known: Pleurodema marmoratum (Duméril & Bibron, 1840) , Telmatobius mayoloi Salas & Sinsch, 1996, Gastrotheca peruana and Rhinella (Bufo) spinulosa (Wiegmann, 1834) ( [73] ; personal observations) . Sympatric species at Catac include the anurans Gastrotheca peruana, Rhinella (Bufo) spinulosa, Telmatobius rimac Schmidt, 1954, Telmatobius mayoloi, and the lizard Stenocercus chrysopygus Boulenger, 1900 ”

“ Sixth, fifth and fourth lorilabials contacting subocular. Preocular small, separated from lorilabial row by one scale. Postocular as large as preocular. Mental in contact with four scales: first infralabials (on each side) and two enlarged chin shields. Chin shields forming a longitudinal row of three enlarged scales separated one from the other by seven smaller scales. Scales of throat round, flat, and imbricate. Twenty-four gulars between auditory meatus. Longitudinal neck fold without keeled scales, that are similar to dorsal in size scales. ”

“ Semicircles formed by 6 scales. Four enlarged supraoculars. Five distinctly imbricate superciliaries on both sides. Eleven upper and lower ciliaries. Subocular elongate, 3.2 mm, longer than eye diameter (2.3 mm; measured between anterior and posterior commissure of ciliaries) , separated from supralabials by a single, but interrupted row of lorilabials. ”

“ Adult male; SVL 56.8 mm; head length 13.7 mm; head width 11.3 mm; head height 7.7 mm; axilla-groin 21.0 mm (37% of SVL) ; foot length 10.3 mm (18.3% of SVL) ; tail length (regenerated) 35.2 mm (0.6 times SVL) .
Fifteen dorsal head scales (from a line drawn horizontally between anterior edges of external auditory meatus to anterior border of rostral) . Dorsal head scales smooth except for the interparietal and surrounding scales, scale organs more abundant in prefrontal, internasal, and supralabial regions. Five scale organs on postrostral. ”