AUSTRALIAN BIODIVERSITY RECORD - Calodema

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Australian Biodiversity Record, 2009 (3): 1-96 of NSW; Costinisauria kosciuskoi (Kinghorn, 1932); Costinisauria leuraensis (Wells and Wellington, 1984); and Costinisauria worrelli Wells and Wellington, 1985. The genus Deloidiogenes Wells and Wellington, 1985 is restricted to a single species - Deloidiogenes amplus (Covacevich and McDonald, 1980). Magmellia gen. nov. is proposed for luteilateralis - Magmellia luteilateralis (Covacevich and McDonald, 1980) comb. nov. The genus Glaphyromorphus Wells and Wellington, 1984 is now restricted to include only Glaphyromorphus clandestinus Hoskin and Couper, 2004, and Glaphyromorphus punctulatus (Peters, 1871). The genus Mawsoniascincus Wells and Wellington, 1985 is restricted to the isolepis complex of species - Mawsoniascincus brongersmai (Storr, 1972); Mawsoniascincus douglasi (Storr, 1967); Mawsoniascincus foresti (Kinghorn, 1932); Mawsoniascincus harwoodi (Wells and Wellington, 1985 comb. nov.; Mawsoniascincus isolepis (Boulenger, 1887). A new genus, Serenitas is erected for the pardalis complex - Serenitas fuscicaudis (Greer, 1979) comb. nov.; Serenitas nigricaudis (Macleay,1877) comb. nov.; and Serenitas pardalis (Macleay, 1877) comb. nov. The genus Opacitascincus Wells and Wellington, 1985 is restricted to the crassicaudus complex of species - Opacitascincus arnhemicus (Storr, 1967); Opacitascincus cracens (Greer, 1985) comb. nov.; Opacitascincus crassicaudus (Dumeril and Dumeril, 1851); Opacitascincus darwiniensis (Storr, 1967); and Opacitascincus pumilus (Boulenger, 1887) comb. nov. The genus Patheticoscincus Wells and Wellington, 1984 is used for its sole included species - Patheticoscincus gracilipes (Steindachner, 1870) comb. nov. Rhiannodon gen. nov. is proposed for a single species Rhiannodon mjobergi (Lonnberg and Andersson, 1915) comb. nov. Introduction For much of the 20 th Century, the generic name Sphenomorphus Fitzinger, 1843 was applied to a large number of Australian scincid lizards - either as a subgenus under Lygosoma, or more often as a distinct genus in its own right. The genus had even been applied historically to certain species in Africa and Central America. An attempt had been made by Mittleman (1950) to unravel the huge polyphyletic genus Lygosoma, and in so doing he left a residual mish-mash of species of uncertain relations within the genus Sphenomorphus. Mittleman’s concept of Sphenomorphus included species that occurred from mainland Asia to the Australia-Pacific region. The landmark papers by Greer (1967, 1970, 1974, 1979b et al.) essentially redefined the subfamilial and generic boundaries of the Australian Scincidae and laid the foundations upon which the Sphenomorphines and all other groups could be reclassified. However, the use of the genus Sphenomorphus for Australian species had continued largely unchallenged for decades. Notable exceptions were the erection of the genus Ctenotus by Storr (1964), the description of Eremiascincus by Greer (1979a, Calyptotis by Greer (1983), and later, Anomalopus by Greer and Cogger (1985). These papers, in tandem with Greer’s earlier work on the higher classification of the Scincidae, precipitated a totally fresh focus on the relationships of the Australian Sphenomorphines. The main problem that seemed to retard any further progress in the generic reclassification of the Sphenomorphines was the fact that it was a group that was long considered as Australasian - with potentially hundreds of species occurring not only across a vast area of continental Australia, but also on over a thousand barely surveyed islands in Indonesia as well as throughout largely unexplored New Guinea and its associated 2
Australian Biodiversity Record, 2009 (3): 1-96 islands. In other words most herpetologists considered that it was probably just too hard to evaluate given the limited state of knowledge on the alpha taxonomy of the group. However, one herpetologist in Western Australia began laying the foundations for the longoverdue taxonomic revision of the Australian “Sphenomorphus” - Dr Glenn Storr. Such revisionary work was more by default than design, for Storr’s first love was actually ecology - not taxonomy as widely assumed. When Storr began studying ecosystems in Western Australia, he quickly realised that the reptile fauna of Western Australia was largely in a state of taxonomic chaos. He was really forced to sort out the taxonomy before he could get stuck into the ecology, but the immense scale of the taxonomic problems of the Australian Herpetofauna ended up taking him over 30 years to unravel. When I discussed taxonomic matters with him in the early 1980s, he lamented his lost opportunities of publishing on the ecology of the reptile fauna because of the need to formally describe numerous species of reptiles first. However, he nevertheless had a vast knowledge of Australian ecosystems and habitats and this gave him tremendous insight into reptile speciation. He approached his taxonomic work from a fairly mechanistic approach though, and this often led others to a perception of superficiality or inadequacy with his descriptions and a general reticence by the herpetological community to adopt his taxonomic changes. For example Storr’s original description of Ctenotus had been brief - even lacking the formal designation of a Type Species, as well as a comprehensive definition of the generic content - and this proved rather problematic when trying to interpret the broader phylogeny of the other Australian Sphenomorphine elements. Indeed, even by the first edition of Reptiles and Amphibians of Australia by Cogger in 1975, the generic descriptions of Ctenotus and Sphenomorphus were almost identical, although by then Ctenotus was in common usage. It was clear that Storr had been correct in the creation of Ctenotus, but the phylogenetic limits and relationships of Ctenotus were a long way from being understood, as most of the species currently assigned to the genus had not been described or even discovered at the time of its description. Following his description of Ctenotus, Storr seemed rather reluctant to undertake much more work at the generic level. For instance he continued to maintain usage of Sphenomorphus for the isolepis complex in his 1967 and 1972 revisions despite the growing body of work by Fred Parker and Allen Greer on that genus extralimitally which made it very clear that nothing in Australia could be referrable to Sphenomorphus sensu stricto. Indeed, rather than describe obviously distinct genera, Storr seemed to curiously split species and lump genera - an approach that was seen at times confusing and inconsistent. It was clear to me however, that Storr was trying to get the alpha taxonomy finished before any serious attempts were made at working out the generic classification. Despite the conclusions on the phylogeny of Australian ‘Sphenomorphus’ of both Storr and Greer, the long-awaited Amphibia and Reptilia volume of the Zoological Catalogue of Australia by Cogger, Cameron and Cogger (1983) surprisingly maintained the use of Sphenomorphus for numerous Australian species as the phylogeny of the group was still unresolved even by then. Within a few months of the first appearance of this Catalogue, Wells and Wellington (1984) published the first of two revisions which effectively rejected the genus Sphenomorphus for Australian species. This first revision of March 1984 resurrected the genus Eulamprus for kosciuskoi, tympanum and quoyii, and also included within Eulamprus, descriptions of two new species - Eulamprus heatwolei and Eulamprus leuraensis. Additionally, Eulamprus gastrostigma was resurrected from the synonymy of quoyii for a distinctive coastal Queensland population. Although this action of using Eulamprus was quickly rejected by Shea and Peterson (1985), who retained the water skinks within the genus Sphenomorphus, subsequent publications by numerous other herpetologists such as Griffiths (1987), Greer (1989), Swan (1990), Hutchinson and Rawlinson (1995), Cogger (2000), Swan, Shea and Sadlier (2004), Wilson (2005), Wilson and Swan (2003, 2007, 2008, 2009), Swanson (2007), Cronin (2009), and the many papers by Shine and his colleagues (see references) have 3
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