Conolophus marthae
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Conolophus marthae |
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| Gentile & Snell , 2009 |
Conolophus marthae is a species from the iguana genus of the glandular heads . The animals only live on the northern slope of the Wolf volcanoin the north of the Galapagos island of Isabela , where they occur syntopically with the "common" Gruze head ( Conolophus subcristatus ). The species was only described in 2009. Because of the rarity of the species, the holotype was not killed and stored in a museum, but only given a transponder .
features
The holotype, a fully grown male, has a head-to-trunk length of 47 cm, a tail length of 61.4 cm and a weight of 5 kg. The head is 7.8 cm long and 6.4 cm wide. Males become significantly larger than the females. Conolophus marthae differs from the other two species of glandular head, among other things, in its pink coloration, with the middle and rear sections of the trunk and the limbs striped black. Further deviating features can be found in the small number of conical scales on the nape of the neck and in the flat or slightly pyramidal scales on the top of the head. In addition, there are molecular biological differences in the cytochrome b gene of the mitochondrial DNA . The genetic distance to the other species is 7%, while there is only a genetic distance of 2% between the head of the gland and the Santa Fe head . Conolophus marthae is thus the basal sister species of a clade formed by the other two species.
Distribution and way of life
Conolophus marthae lives on the northern slope of the Wolf volcano on Isabela at an altitude of 600 to 1700 meters. From May to July, the animals stay mainly in the dry bushland near the edge of the caldera at an altitude of 1700 meters. With the start of the dry season, they migrate to the dry forests of the lower regions.
Danger
The IUCN lists Conolophus marthae as critically endangered because of the narrow distribution area of only 25 km², a population of only around 120 to 200 specimens and the threat from droughts and volcanic eruptions .
literature
- Gentile, Gabriele; Snell, Howard L. (2009): Conolophus marthae sp. Nov. (Squamata, Iguanidae), a new species of land iguana from the Galápagos archipelago , Zootaxa 2201: 1–10.
- Gentile, Gabriele; Anna Fabiani; Cruz Marquez; Howard L. Snell; Heidi M. Snell; Washington Tapia; Valerio Sbordonia (2009) . An overlooked pink species of land iguana in the Galapagos. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America) 106 (2): 507-11. doi: 10.1073 / pnas.0806339106
Web links
- Conolophus marthae in The Reptile Database
- Conolophus marthae in the Red List of Threatened Species of the IUCN 2012. Posted by: Gentile, G., 2012. Retrieved on June 4, 2015.