Hemidactylus paucifasciatus (Squamata: Gekkonidae), a new species of large-bodied, tuberculate gecko from Northern Odisha, India.

A new Hemidactylus belonging to the H. prashadi group is described herein, based on a series of four specimens from the Chota Nagpur Plateau in northern Odisha. Hemidactylus paucifasciatus sp. nov. can be diagnosed from regional congeners by its large body size (SVL up to 117.7 mm), the number of dorsal tubercle rows at mid-body, three or four bands on the dorsum, the number of enlarged tubercles in paravertebral rows, the number of femoral pores and poreless scales separating the left and right series on the femoral-precloacal row in males, and the number of ventral scales across the belly at mid-body. A mitochondrial phylogeny demonstrates that the new species is nested within the H. triedrus complex of the northern clade within the H. prashadi group, with 16.2-16.5 % pairwise divergence in ND2 sequence data from members of the H. triedrus complex and > 21 % from other members of the prashadi group. Hemidactylus paucifasciatus sp. nov. is the first endemic gecko to be described from the Chota Nagpur Plateau.

The evolutionary history of an accidental model organism, the leopard gecko Eublepharis macularius (Squamata: Eublepharidae).

The leopard gecko, Eublepharis macularius, is a widely used model organism in laboratory and experimental studies. The high phenotypic diversity in the pet trade, the fact that the provenance of different breeding lines is unknown, and that distinct Eublepharis species are known to hybridize, implies that the continued use of E. macularius as a model requires clarity on the origin of the lineages in the pet trade. We combine multi-locus sequence data and the first range-wide sampling of the genus Eublepharis to reconstruct the evolutionary history of the Eublepharidae and Eublepharis, with an updated time-tree for the Eublepharidae. Our sampling includes five of the six recognized species and additional nominal taxa of uncertain status comprising 43 samples from 34 localities plus 48 pet-trade samples. The Eublepharidae began diversifying in the Cretaceous. Eublepharis split from its sister genera in Africa in the Palaeocene-Eocene, and began diversifying in the Oligocene-Miocene, with late Miocene-Pliocene cladogenesis giving rise to extant species. The current species diversity within this group is moderately underestimated. Our species delimitation suggests 10 species with four potentially unnamed divergent lineages in Iran, India and Pakistan. All 30 individuals of E. macularius that we sampled from the pet trade, which include diverse morphotypes, come from a few shallow E. macularius clades, confirming that lab and pet trade strains are part of a single taxon. One of the wild-caught haplotypes of E. macularius, from near Karachi, Pakistan, is identical to (10) pet-trade samples and all other captive populations are closely related to wild-caught animals from central/southern Pakistan (0.1-0.5 % minimum pairwise uncorrected ND2 sequence divergence).

Description of three new species of the genus Mata Distant, 1906 (Hemiptera: Cicadidae: Cicadinae: Oncotympanini) with notes on their natural history from Indian state of Meghalaya, India.

Three new species of the Asian genus Mata Distant, 1906 (Hemiptera: Cicadidae) viz. Mata lenonia sp.nov.; Mata ruffordii sp.nov. and Mata meghalayana sp.nov. are described from Indian state of Meghalaya. Keys and taxonomic descriptions of these species are provided with detailed accounts of their natural history and acoustics.

A new species of Sitana (Squamata: Agamidae) from the Deccan Peninsula Biogeographic Zone of India.

We describe a new species of fan-throated lizard of the genus Sitana from the Deccan peninsula of India. The new species is from the Sitana sivalensis clade and can be readily diagnosed morphologically from S. sivalensis, S. fusca and S. schleichi by having the dewlap extending beyond forearm insertion. The new species differs from all other congeners in the combination of morphological characters such as a feebly serrated dewlap with a dark blue line on the throat in adult males (versus  a well serrated dewlap with a bright blue patch and orange spots in S. ponticeriana complex), small body size (versus a large body size in S. gokakensis and S. thondalu) and a relatively smaller dewlap size (relatively larger in S. laticeps, S. spinaecephalus, S. dharwarensis, S. gokakensis, S. thondalu, S. marudhamneydhal, S. ponticeriana and S. visiri). The new species was found to be commonly distributed in arid and open habitats as well as in farmlands and plantations in northern Andhra Pradesh, eastern Madhya Pradesh and most parts of Chhattisgarh and Odisha states.

A novel, diminutive Hemiphyllodactylus Bleeker, 1860 (Squamata: Gekkonidae) from a sacred grove in Odisha, eastern India.

We describe a distinct new species of Hemiphyllodactylus from a sacred grove near Humma in Ganjam District of Odisha state, eastern India. Hemiphyllodactylus minimus sp. nov. is the smallest member of the genus and can be diagnosed from all peninsular Indian congeners by its small body size (SVL ≤32.2 mm, n=11), having 15-18 dorsal scales and eight or nine ventral scales at mid-body contained within one longitudinal eye diameter, nine or ten precloacal pores separated by 4-6 poreless scales from a series of six or seven femoral pores on each thigh in males, lamellar formula of manus 2222 and of pes 2332 2333, as well as subtle colour pattern differences. Additionally, the new species is 16.0-22.7 % divergent from all other peninsular Indian Hemiphyllodactylus in uncorrected ND2 sequence data. The new species is the first member of the genus described from Odisha state and also the first Hemiphyllodactylus known from < 100 m asl. The discovery of Hemiphyllodactylus minimus sp. nov. from a low elevation coastal locality in the Eastern Ghats open ups the possibilities that the genus could be more widespread than currently understood and potentially harbour many more distinct undescribed lineages. Therefore, dedicated fine-scale sampling efforts are needed to uncover the true diversity and distribution of Hemiphyllodactylus in the region.

Antibiotic susceptibility of cultivable aerobic microbiota from the oral cavity of Echis carinatus from Odisha (India).

During a snake bite, the microbes may get transferred to the bite site and may cause secondary infection along with envenomation. The knowledge on the oral bacterial flora of snakes constitutes information important for snake bite management. The inadequately studied oral microflora of snakes differ geographically, temporally and among the members of the same species. The objective of this study is to determine the pattern of oral bacterial flora of Saw-scaled viper (Echis carinatus) and their susceptibility to antibiotics. Oral swabs were collected from nine healthy Saw-scaled vipers, subjected to microbiological, biochemical and molecular characterization. Additionally, these isolates were subjected to antimicrobial susceptibility testing using ICOSA-20-Plus and ICOSA-20-Minus. A wide range of pathogenic bacteria such as Salmonella arizonae, Pseudomonas stutzeri, Proteus penneri, Alcaligenes faecalis; Citrobacter diversus, C. freundii, Enterococcus faecalis, Bacillus anthracis, Staphylococcus sciuri and Achromobacter xylosoxidans were isolated as new additions to the floral diversity of saw scale viper. Most of the isolates were sensitive towards amikacin, azithromycin, imipenem, ciprofloxacin, gentamicin, ofloxacin, sparfloxacin, tobramycin, levofloxacin, kanamycin, tetracycline, and chloramphenicol while resistant to amoxyclav, cephalothin, cefpodoxime, Co-Trimoxazole, oxacillin and penicillin. The present study revealed that the bacterial flora of the oral cavity of Saw-scaled viper is resistant to many common antibiotics, which are often used for the treatment of snake-bite victims.

"Endangered or an artifact of unsound taxonomy? Case of the critically endangered bush frog Philautus sanctisilvaticus Das and Chanda, 1997".

We investigated the phylogenetic relationship of the Critically Endangered bush frog Philautus sanctisilvaticus Das and Chanda, 1997 and other species distributed across the fragmented forests of Deccan Peninsula and the northern Eastern Ghats. A short fragment of the mitochondrial 16S rRNA gene was employed to assess phylogenetic relationships across Philautus sanctisilvaticus Das and Chanda, 1997, Raorchestes terebrans (Das and Chanda, 1998) and Philautus similipalensis Dutta, 2003. All sequenced specimens, including material from near the type localities of P. sanctisilvaticus (Amarkantak) and P. similipalensis (Simlipal) were genetically extremely similar, with pairwise uncorrected distances 1% in the 16S gene, and were phylogenetically placed within the genus Raorchestes. The results based on morphology are ambiguous and do not go hand in hand with molecular data, which however do not provide support for a three species hypothesis either. our findings advocate the need for making nomenclatural amendments. Philautus sanctisilvaticus Das and Chanda, 1997, is the first available nomen for this taxon, and we propose to include this species in Raorchestes as Raorchestes sanctisilvaticus (Das and Chanda, 1997), and to consider the nomina Philautus terebrans Das and Chanda, 1998 syn. nov. and Philautus similipalensis Dutta, 2003 syn. nov. as junior subjective synonyms for this nomen following the Principle of Priority in article 23.1 of the ICZN. The findings are notable from the point of conservation of the species and present a novel case with remarkable genetic homogeneity across the fragmented forests of Deccan Peninsula and Eastern Ghats.

A new species of large-bodied, tuberculate Hemidactylus Oken (Squamata: Gekkonidae) from the Eastern Ghats, India.

A distinct new gecko of the genus Hemidactylus is described from Andhra Pradesh, India. This large-sized (snout to vent length up to at least 105 mm), scansorial Hemidactylus is characterized by dorsal scalation of small granules intermixed with large, pointed, trihedral tubercles that form 16-17 fairly regularly arranged longitudinal rows at midbody; 9-11 subdigital lamellae below the first and 11-13 below the fourth digit; 6-8 strongly pointed and keeled enlarged tubercles on the original tail; 20-23 femoral pores separated by 4 poreless scales in males; 11-13 supralabials and 9-11 infralabials. This is the third vertebrate endemic to the Mahendragiri Range, highlighting the significance of this topographically complex region.

Ahaetulla nasuta anomala (Annandale, 1906) (Squamata: Colubridae), resurrected as a valid species with marked sexual dichromatism.

In this paper we resolve the taxonomic confusion related to Ahaetulla nasuta anomala (Annandale, 1906). On the basis of molecular and morphological data, we remove it from the synonymy of Ahaetulla nasuta (Lacépède, 1789) and reinstate it as a valid species-Ahaetulla anomala. This species is sexually dichromatic, males are green and females are brown in colour. Though the brown morph morphologically resembles Ahaetulla pulverulenta (Duméril, Bibron & Duméril, 1854) there are significant morphological and genetic differences between these two species. Additional information on taxonomy, natural history and distribution of the species is provided.

A long-lost relic from the Eastern Ghats: Morphology, distribution and habitat of Sepsophis punctatus Beddome, 1870 (Squamata: Scincidae).

Sepsophis punctatus Beddome 1870, the only species of a monotypic genus, was described based on a single specimen from the Eastern Ghats of India. We rediscovered the species based on specimens from Odisha and Andhra Pradesh state, India, after a gap of 137 years, including four specimens from close to the type locality. The holotype was studied in detail, and we present additional morphological characters of the species with details on natural history, habitat and diet. The morphological characters of the holotype along with two additional specimens collected by Beddome are compared with the specimens collected by us. We also briefly discuss the distribution of other members of the subfamily Scincinae and their evolutionary affinities.

The first teresomatan caecilian (Amphibia: Gymnophiona) from the Eastern Ghats of India--a new species of Gegeneophis Peters, 1880.

A new species of caecilian amphibian, Gegeneophis orientalis sp. nov., is described based on a series of nine specimens from high elevation (ca. 1,200 m) habitats in the Eastern Ghats in the states of Andhra Pradesh and Odisha, India. This species differs from all other congeners in having only bicuspid teeth in the outer as well as inner rows. The new species is the first caecilian reported from the state of Odisha, the first teresomatan caecilian from the Eastern Ghats, and is the only Indian indotyphlid known from outside the Western Ghats region.