Echinosaura horrida, BOULENGER, 1890

ECHINOSAURA HORRIDA BOULENGER, 1890 View in CoL

( FIG 6C, 10C)

Echinosaura horrida Boulenger, 1890: 83 View in CoL (original description). Syntypes: Two specimens ( BMNH 1946.8.31.60–61) (see below) from ‘Ecuador’, exact locality unknown .

Echinosaura horrida horrida ( Boulenger, 1890) View in CoL – Uzzell, 1965: 83.

Type material: Boulenger (1890: 83) described Echinosaura horrida based on two specimens deposited in the lizard collection of the British Museum ( BMNH), a female and a young, neither of which was referenced with a specific collection number. Boulenger also did not designate a holotype. However, according to the data portal of the BMNH (http://data.nhm.ac.uk) and Torres-Carvajal (2001), there are two type specimens (syntypes following the Art. 73.2 of the ICZN) of E. horrida ( BMNH 1946.8.31.60 and 1946.8.31.61) whose information matches the original description.

Diagnosis: The following data are based on 13 examined specimens (referred material listed in Supporting Information, Appendix SII) and data taken from the literature ( Uzzell, 1965; Köhler et al., 2004). Echinosaura horrida possesses the following characteristics: (1) snout pointed, relatively short; (2) internasal single; (3) frontonasals paired; (4) frontal single, short; (5) frontoparietals paired; (6) supraoculars two or three, large; (7) supralabials usually five or six; (8) infralabials three (some specimens from Ecuador have four supralabials and/or infralabials); (9) postmental single; (10) chin shields short, rounded and in one pair; (11) two longitudinal, parallel and juxtaposed paravertebral ridges; (12) series of spine-like scales forming oblique lines on lateral surface of body; (13) ventral scales squared, keeled; (14) subdigital lamellae on the fourth finger 14–19; (15) subdigital lamellae on the fourth toe 21–25; (16) femoral pores per hind limb in males usually 7–10; (17) dorsal surface of tail with two parallel ridges, formed by a series of scales increasing in size from the anterior margin of each caudal segment; lateral surface of tail with more-developed scales forming longitudinal ridges (coded as ‘= pattern’); (18) subcaudals per caudal segment three (when tail is not regenerated); (19) dorsum brown, sometimes with faint yellowish spots; ventral surface of head and neck mostly light brown, except on the anterior part where there is a darker ground colour, with some transverse cream blotches extending to labial scales; ventral surface of body (including limbs) mainly light brown spotted with dark brown and cream, while that of tail has blotches or dark transverse marks. Colouration in preservative similar to that in life.

Combination of these characteristics distinguishes Echinosaura horrida from its congeners. In addition, the distinctiveness of E. horrida and its sister-species E. brachycephala ( Fig. 2) is further corroborated by uncorrected pairwise distances of 18.8% in ND4 and 6.5% in 16S ( Table 1).

Geographic distribution: Echinosaura horrida occurs on the Pacific versant of Ecuador and Colombia, from central-west Ecuador in the western part of Cotopaxi province to Isla Gorgona in Colombia and the adjacent mainland. This is mainly a lowland species, but its elevation ranges from 10 to c. 1546 m a.s.l. ( Fig. 8).

Remarks: Echinosaura horrida occurs in sympatry with E. keyi in Ecuador, in the vicinity of Mataje and in El Placer, Esmeraldas province and in La Florida, Pichincha province ( Fritts et al., 2002).