Published November 21, 2022 | Version v1
Journal article Open

Rock island melody remastered: two new species in the Afroedura bogerti Loveridge, 1944 group from Angola and Namibia

  • 1. Nelson Mandela University, George, South Africa|Port Elizabeth Museum (Bayworld), Port Elizabeth, South Africa
  • 2. Natural History Museum of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland
  • 3. BIOPOLIS Program in Genomics, Biodiversity and Land Planning, Lubango, Angola|Universidade do Porto, Vairão, Portugal
  • 4. National Museum of Namibia, Windhoek, Namibia|University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa
  • 5. BIOPOLIS Program in Genomics, Biodiversity and Land Planning, Lubango, Angola|TwinLab CIBIO/ISCED – Instituto de Ciências da Educação da Huíla, Lubango, Angola|Fundação Kissama, Lubango, Angola|Universidade do Porto, Vairão, Portugal
  • 6. Namibian University of Science and Technology, Windhoek, Namibia

Description

Newly collected material from northern Namibia's Otjihipa Mountains and west-central Angola allowed us to revisit the Afroedura bogerti Loveridge, 1944 group. The employment of additional gene markers, including nuclear markers, allowed us to identify two new species in the group and infer species boundaries and potential speciation events in Afroedura from southwestern Africa. The new Namibian material is recovered as a sister species to A. donveae, from which it differs mostly by the colour of the iris (copper versus black) and dorsal colouration. Material from the first elevational gradient of the escarpment in Benguela Province, Angola was found to be more closely related to A. bogerti than A. wulfhaackei. The differences between these two species are more subtle, although the new species exhibits higher mid-body scale rows (79.5 versus 74.8), different dorsal colouration and supranasal scales always in contact (versus 57% in contact).

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