Bragin, A. M., Ht. Decemson, H. T. Lalremsanga, Z. A. Mirza & N. A. Poyarkov

A new species of Himalayan skink of the genus Ablepharus (Squamata: Scincidae). pp. 373-394 plus Supplementary material.

Abstract. Based on morphological and genetic evidence, we evaluated the taxonomic status of a deeply divergent highland population of Himalayan ablepharine skinks (genus Ablepharus Fitzinger in Lichtenstein, 1823) from Uttarakhand state in northern India. This lineage, here described as a new species, forms a well-supported clade of Ablepharus and differs from the morphologically similar species by a significant divergence in the 16S rRNA and cytochrome b mitochondrial DNA gene sequences. From the phylogenetic analysis of a 2,961 bp concatenated alignment of the ND2, cyt b, 16S, and 12S rRNA mitochondrial DNA genes and diagnostic morphological characters, we allocate the newly discovered population from Duggal Bittha village, Chopta region to the A. tragbulensis-A. ladacensis species complex (Clade 1 according to Bragin et al. 2024) and describe it as Ablepharus flammeus sp. n. Our discovery brings the number of Ablepharus species in India to seven and in the Himalayan region to eleven and emphasizes the incompleteness of knowledge on the herpetofaunal diversity of this highland region. In this study, we also compare known morphological data for ablepharine skinks from the Himalayan region and discuss the hidden cryptic diversity within this group of skinks.

Key words. Sauria, Ablepharus, biodiversity, India, morphology, phylogenetics, taxonomy.