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ABSTRACT.-Two new continental species of Goniurosaurus, G. lu from the Guangxi Province and the Island of Hainan, China, and G. araneus from northern Vietnam, are described herein. An evolutionary classification consistent with the phylogenetic pattern (lu + araneus) + ((lichtenfelderi + hainanensis) + (yamashinae + ((orientalis + kuroiwae) + (toyamai + splendens))) is proposed, elevating the endemic insular subspecies of G. kuriowae and G. lichtenfelderi to full species. A historical biogeographical scenario is presented invoking extinction of a continental ancestor of the kuroiwae and lichtenfelderi groups. Conservation efforts are needed to ensure the safety of the decreasing wild populations of G. Iu and G. araneus which are being exported out of their respective countries for the international pet trade at an alarming rate.
The genus Goniurosaurus, as it is currently constituted, contains two species; G. kuroiwae from the Ryukyu Archipelago, Japan, composed of five subspecies (Grismer et al., 1994), and G. Iichtenfelderi from islands in the Gulf of Tonkin in the South China Sea and adjacent northern Vietnam (Ota, 1998), containing two subspecies (Grismer, 1987). Grismer et al. (1994) noted the likely occurrence of an unidentified continental Goniurosaurus from the Guizhou Province of China reported by Li et al. (1985). Wen (1983) reported Goniurosaurus lichtenfelderi from Lang'an, Guangxi Province, China; Hu and Zhao (1987) reported E. lichtenfelderi from northern Vietnam, and Zhao and Adler (1993) reported G. I. hainanensis from the Guangxi Province of southern China as well as Hainan Island, China in the Gulf of Tonkin. Matsui and Ota (1995) predicted that the continental populations of Goniurosaurus in Guangxi and Guizhou were undescribed taxa. We report here on three new unidentified populations of Goniurosaurus from the vicinity of Longzhou and Pingxiang in the Guangxi Province and Hainan Island, China, and from 40 km southeast of Cao Bang, Cao Bang Province, in northern Vietnam.
Examination of the new material revealed that they possessed the derived character state of midventral contact of the prefrontal bones ventral to the frontal, a character state unique among squamates to eublepharid geckos (Grismer, 1988). They belong to the genus Goniurosaurus (sensu Grismer, 1988) based on their possession and lack of the following character states: having the derived character states of rod-like clavicles, absence of sacral pleuropophyses, a cleft rostral...