Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Jablonski, Daniel
• Sadek, Riyad A.

Titel

The species identity and biogeography of Blanus (Amphisbaenia: Blanidae) in Lebanon

Ist Teil von

• Zoology in the Middle East, 2019-07, Vol.65 (3), p.208-214

Ort / Verlag

Taylor & Francis

Erscheinungsjahr

2019

Quelle

Taylor & Francis

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• The genus Blanus Wagler, 1830 represents limbless, burrowing reptiles of the family Blanidae with disjunct circum-Mediterranean distribution. The recently described species Blanus alexandri Sindaco, Kornilios, Sacchi & Lymberakis, 2014 is known from south-eastern Turkey with a presumed occurrence in the Levant and Iraq. We provide here records from Lebanon and confirm the affiliation of Lebanese populations to this species by mitochondrial and nuclear DNA. Blanus alexandri comprises at least seven deeply evolved phylogenetic clades with up to 11% of uncorrected p-distances in their mitochondrial DNA. This suggests a probably older than the Miocene origin of some of these clades. Populations from Lebanon form a different clade with a genetic diversity that is close to populations from southern Turkey.