Confusion over Persian lizard eliminated after 150 years

The Persian long-tailed desert lizard specimen on the Zoological Survey of India’s museum in Kolkata.
| Picture Credit score: SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT

Scientists from the Zoological Survey of India (ZSI) have eliminated confusion over the Persian long-tailed desert lizard, 153 years after it was first described from Sindh in present-day Pakistan.

This desert lizard, referred to as Mesalina watsonana zoologically, was described as Eremias (Mesalina) watsonana by Ferdinand Stolickza, a Nineteenth-century naturalist, in 1872 based mostly on 5 specimens from the suitable financial institution of the Indus River between Karachi and Sakkar. He deposited one of many 5 specimens on the ZSI in Kolkata.

Distributed throughout Afghanistan, India, Iran, Pakistan, and Turkmenistan, this species inhabits the foothills, sand dunes, and sandy plains with poor vegetation.

Mesalina watsonana has been a key species within the research of desert lizard range throughout South and Central Asia. Nonetheless, confusion over its syntypes (specimens used to outline a species when no single ‘kind’ specimen was chosen) unfold throughout museums in Kolkata, London, and Vienna posed a problem to researchers.

ZSI scientists Sumidh Ray and Pratyush P. Mohapatra designated ZSI-R-5050, the syntype Stolickza had deposited, because the definitive lectotype to function a single kind specimen. Their taxonomical feat, achieved by analysing historic data and adhering to fashionable zoological nomenclature codes, was printed within the newest situation of Zootaxa, a peer-reviewed journal.

Past the taxonomic significance, the lectotype designation highlights the scientific worth of Stolickza’s Persian and Sindh collections housed on the ZSI. These specimens, a part of expeditions led beneath the British Geological Survey of India, characterize a number of the earliest systematic herpetofaunal documentation within the Indian subcontinent and neighbouring areas.

“Stoliczka’s materials is foundational. The ZSI holds lots of his kind specimens that stay central to reptile taxonomy in South and Central Asia. Validating and anchoring these names is not only about scientific readability, but additionally about honouring a legacy of discovery,” Dhriti Banerjee, the Director of ZSI, mentioned on Monday (Might 19, 2025).

Whereas underscoring the function of historic collections in fashionable taxonomy, the lectotype designation is anticipated to strengthen future analysis on species complexes inside Mesalina.