Diploderma, HALLOWELL, 1861

DIPLODERMA HALLOWELL, 1861 View in CoL

Etymology: The Latin generic name ‘ Diploderma ’ consists of two parts, ‘ Diplo -’ means ‘double’ or ‘many’, and ‘- derma ’ means ‘skin’, and the whole word is in a neuter gender. As the previous generic name ‘ Japalura ’ and most species names of the genus s.l. are feminine, most names of species that are now assigned to Diploderma need their gender changed to neutral (except for existing neutral-gender names like brevipes or flaviceps, Latin nouns like vela or names derived from peoples’ names, i.e. dymondi , luei , makii , swinhonis , varcoae and zhaoermii ). We suggest the English common name of the genus as ‘Mountain Dragon’, and the Chinese common name as ‘龙蜥’ (pronounced as ‘Long-Xi’).

Type species: Diploderma polygonatum Hallowell, 1861 .

Diagnosis: Lizards of the genus Diploderma differ from closely related genera by having the following morphological characteristics: (1) scales of lateral head keeled; (2) nuchal and dorsal crest scales relatively short and thick, not elongated into lanceolate spines, CL/HL mostly <10%; (3) post-occipital and post-orbital spines absent; (4) gular scales mostly homogeneous in size, not decreasing in size toward the centre; (5) scales on lateral jaw subequal in size across gular region; (6) dorsal scale significantly heterogeneous in size and shape, not regularly imbricate; (7) paravertebral dorsolateral ridges of body present in most species, formed by enlarged, keeled scales (except in D. swinhonis and D. leui ); and (8) V-shaped ridges along dorsal body midline absent in all but one species (except in D. swinhonis ).

Phylogenetic definition: We define Diploderma using the maximum crown-clade definition, which includes species that share a more recent common ancestor with Diploderma polygonatum than with Pseudocalotes tymanistriga and Acanthosaura lepidogaster .

Included species: Based on our phylogenetic results, we assign the following species into the genus Diploderma : D. batangense , D. brevipes , D. chapaense , D. dymondi , D. flaviceps , D. laeviventre , D. luei , D. makii , D. micangshanense , D. polygonatum (and all of its subspecies), D. slowinskii , D. splendidum , D. swinhonis , D. varcoae , D. vela , D. yulongense , D. yunnanense and D. zhaoermii .

According to our proposed morphological diagnoses, we also assign Diploderma brevicaudum , D. fasciatum , D. grahami , D. hamptoni and D. iadinum to this genus, pending on future phylogenetic confirmations. In total, 24 species of Japalura s.l. are reclassified into the genus Diploderma (for discussion on the taxonomic status of D. ngoclinense see below).

Geographic distribution: Members of the genus are distributed across mainland East Asia, East Asian islands and northern Indochina, including central, southern and south-western Mainland China ( D. batangense , D. brevicaudum , D. chapaense , D. dymondi , D. fasciatum , D. flaviceps , D. grahami , D. iadinum , D. laeviventre , D. micangshanense , D. slowinskii , D. splendidum , D. vela , D. yulongense , D. yunnanense and D. zhaoermii ) and Taiwan ( D. brevipes , D. luei , D. makii , D. polygonatum and D. swinhonis ), the southern islands of Japan ( D. polygonatum ), central and eastern Myanmar ( D. hamptoni ), northern Vietnam ( D. fasciatum and D. chapaense ) and northern Thailand ( D. yunnanense ). Congeners such as D. yunnanense may also be distributed in Myanmar and northern Laos close to the Chinese border ( Fig. 5).