Today (25 March 2025) three scientific papers were published in Australia formally discovering and naming 12 species of lizard from north-west Africa and five more from the Iberian Peninsula, including Spain, Portugal and nearby France.
All except 4 African geckos are within the lizard family Lacertidae, a group with a centre of distribution along the north Mediterranean coast.
The newly discovered species were all until now treated by herpetologists as variants of other well-known species, but a series of molecular studies over the previous 2 decades have flagged these newly named species as divergent and different. But no one had looked at the morphology of the lizards closely enough to be able to separate the species.
Each of the newly-named species are at least 1.5 MYA divergent from their nearest named relatives.
They are readily separated from one another.
For the last 2 centuries Europeans have classified and named species from around the world, but never until recently, has someone from one of the colonies returned to Europe to discover and name species there.
Raymond Hoser, better-known as the Snake Man has previously upset European scientists by treading on their territory and naming species from under their very noses.
He named three species of Viper from Spain and Portugal in 2015, as seen at the paper linked here:
AJH Issue 30, pages 28-36
Hoser has also named viper species from Greece, Turkey and elsewhere in east Europe.
He also formally named the genus for the European Blindsnake, which is now officially known as Lenhosertyphlops Hoser, 2012. A more recently coined name Xerotyphlops, is an illegal junior synonym of Lenhosertyphlops and should not be used.
The rules governing names in Zoology are clear on this. In fact in 2021 the International Commission of Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN) ruled against Xerotyphlops and about 100 names coined by a cohort of Hosers rivals as alternatives to the correct (priority) scientific names.
The new species of Lacertid Lizards are of medium size and quite attractive, sporting colours of yellow, green and sometimes aqua blue, the latter not being a commonly seen colour in reptiles.
The five new Iberian species mainly occur around Valencia, southern Spain and Portugal, including the border areas of Spain. Photos of them appear in the Hoser paper of this week and are also available on Inaturalist, Flickr and other photo sharing platforms online.
Raymond Hoser, The Snake Man is the worlds foremost reptile scientist. He has discovered and named more species of reptile than anyone else in history, being over 1,100 species and subspecies. These have been on all major inhabited landmasses of the world, including Europe, the Middle-east, Africa, Madagascar, Asia, The Caribbean, North and South America, Oceana and Australasia.
Pdf files of the relevant papers published this week can be found at:
AJH 74
For further information, photos, etc, can be obtained from:
snakeman (at) snakeman.com.au
Snakeman Raymond Hoser 0412777211 (Australia).
