On the Identity of Sphaenorhynchus platycephalus (Werner, 1894) (Anura: Hylidae)

Sphaenorhynchus platycephalus was briefly described on the basis of a single specimen, with only "S-Amerika" as its locality. Although it has been regarded as a distinct species, compelling evidence is lacking. A comparison of all currently described species of Sphaenorhynchus, including type specimens of several species, allowed us to provide morphological evidence that S. platycephalus and S. orophilus are conspecific, with S. orophilus being a junior synonym of S. platycephalus.Fil: de Araujo Vieira, Katyuscia. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Parque Centenario. Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales “Bernardino Rivadavia”; ArgentinaFil: Caramaschi, Ulisses. Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro; BrasilFil: Grillitsch, Heinz. Natural History Museum Vienna; AustriaFil: Grant, Taran. Universidade de Sao Paulo; BrasilFil: Faivovich, Julián. Universidad de Buenos Aires; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Parque Centenario. Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales “Bernardino Rivadavia”; Argentin

Photography-based taxonomy is inadequate, unnecessary, and potentially harmful for biological sciences

The question whether taxonomic descriptions naming new animal species without type specimen(s) deposited in collections should be accepted for publication by scientific journals and allowed by the Code has already been discussed in Zootaxa (Dubois & Nemésio 2007; Donegan 2008, 2009; Nemésio 2009a–b; Dubois 2009; Gentile & Snell 2009; Minelli 2009; Cianferoni & Bartolozzi 2016; Amorim et al. 2016). This question was again raised in a letter supported by 35 signatories published in the journal Nature (Pape et al. 2016) on 15 September 2016. On 25 September 2016, the following rebuttal (strictly limited to 300 words as per the editorial rules of Nature) was submitted to Nature, which on 18 October 2016 refused to publish it. As we think this problem is a very important one for zoological taxonomy, this text is published here exactly as submitted to Nature, followed by the list of the 493 taxonomists and collection-based researchers who signed it in the short time span from 20 September to 6 October 2016

A new species of the genus Calotes (Squamata: Agamidae) from high elevations of the Knuckles Massif of Sri Lanka

Thasun Amarasinghe, A. A., Suranjan Karunarathna, D. M. S., Hallermann, Jakob, Fujinuma, Junichi, Grillitsch, Heinz, Campbell, Patrick D. (2014): A new species of the genus Calotes (Squamata: Agamidae) from high elevations of the Knuckles Massif of Sri Lanka. Zootaxa 3785 (1): 59-78, DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.3785.1.

The story of a rock-star: multilocus phylogeny and species delimitation in the starred or roughtail rock agama, Laudakia stellio (Reptilia: Agamidae)

Situated at the junction of three continents, Europe, Asia and Africa, the Eastern Mediterranean is an ideal region to study the effects of palaeogeography, ecology and long human presence on animal evolution. Laudakia stellio (Squamata: Agamidae) is found across this region and offers an excellent opportunity for such studies. The high morphological variation across their range suggests that these lizards might represent a species complex. This is the first study exploring their evolutionary history, using molecular markers and individuals from all described subspecies. We employed the latest phylogenetic and species-delimitation methods to identify all distinct evolutionary lineages, their genetic variation and divergence times. The phenotypical diversity of L. stellio matches its genetic differentiation: almost all subspecies correspond to well-supported retrieved subclades and additional distinct lineages representing intermediate morphs have been retrieved. 'Laudakia stellio' represents three distinct evolutionary entities that diverged during the Plio-Pleistocene transition, which we propose as distinct species. One includes Greek and Turkish populations, as well as cryptic Anatolian lineages. The second comprises all other Near East populations and the third is endemic to Cyprus. Our results indicate a role of humans in shaping present distribution patterns, and highlight the importance of the Aegean, Anatolia and the Levant as glacial refugia and diversity hotspots