Echinosaura keyi, (FRITTS & SMITH, 1969)

ECHINOSAURA KEYI ( FRITTS & SMITH, 1969) View in CoL

( FIG. 6D)

Teuchocercus keyi Fritts & Smith, 1969: 54–59 View in CoL (original description). Holotype: Male ( UIMNH 80451 View Materials ) from ‘ 4 km E Río Baba bridge, 24 km S Santo Domingo de los Colorados, 600 m, Pichincha, Ecuador’ .

Echinosaura keyi ( Fritts & Smith, 1969) View in CoL – Torres-Carvajal et al., 2016: 69 (first use of that combination).

Diagnosis: The following data are based on the original description, literature ( Köhler et al., 2004) and high-quality photographs of specimens deposited at QCAZ (available online through www.bioweb. bio). Echinosaura keyi possesses the following characteristics: (1) snout relatively short; (2) internasal longitudinally divided; (3) frontonasals paired; (4) frontal extending up to the middle of the eyes, usually single but could be divided transversely; (5) frontoparietals paired; (6) supraoculars three (third supraocular smaller than first and second); (7) supralabials four; (8) infralabials 3–4; (9) tympanum covered with small, granular scales; (10) postmental single, short; (11) large chin shields in one pair; (12) two longitudinal paravertebral ridges formed by spine-like scales, discontinuous on posterior portion of body; (13) series of conical scales of different sizes forming oblique lines on lateral surface of body; (14) ventral scales squared, smooth; (15) femoral pores per hind limb in males usually 8–11; (16) tail with six longitudinal rows of enlarged conical scales on the posterior part of each caudal segment (coded as ‘^ pattern’); (17) subcaudals per caudal segment three (when tail is not regenerated); (18) dorsum dark brown or almost black, with some yellow or cream reticulate spots; ventral surface of head and neck mainly cream with some dark spots; ventral surface of body (including limbs) mainly cream or light brown spotted with dark brown, while that of tail spotted with light and dark brown.

Combination of these characteristics distinguishes E. keyi from its congeners. In addition, the distinctiveness of E. keyi and its congeners is corroborated by a minimal uncorrected pairwise distances of 17.2% in ND4 and 6.7% in 16S ( Table 1).

Geographic distribution: Echinosaura keyi is endemic to Ecuador. Its known distribution is restricted to the Pacific versant of north-western Ecuador, including Santo Domingo , Pichincha, Esmeraldas, Imbabura and Carchi provinces. Its elevational range is from 200 to 1235 m a.s.l. ( Fig. 8) .

Remarks: Echinosaura keyi occurs in sympatry with E. horrida in the vicinity of Mataje and in El Placer, Esmeraldas province and in La Florida, Pichincha province ( Fritts et al., 2002). It is possible that this species extends into southern Colombia.