@article {25693, title = {A new species of Rhabdops Boulenger, 1893 (Serpentes: Natricinae) from the northern Western Ghats region of India}, journal = {Zootaxa}, volume = {4319}, year = {2017}, month = {09/2017}, pages = {27-52}, abstract = {

Based on analyses of new DNA sequence data for two nuclear (rag1, cmos) and three mitochondrial (16s, cytb, nd4) genes, the Indian snake genus Rhabdops is a natricine. Variation in geography, DNA sequences, the number of ventral scales, pattern and colour for samples of Rhabdops from along the Western Ghats region of peninsular India is concordant, discontinuous and bimodal. We recognise populations from the northern Western Ghats as distinct specifically from the more southerly R. olivaceus and describe Rhabdops aquaticus sp. nov. based on a series of eight specimens from two localities in the Northern Western Ghats. Rhabdops aquaticus sp. nov. is associated particularly with upland laterite plateaus and their associated streams, a threatened habitat within its known distribution.

}, doi = {10.11646/zootaxa.4319.1.2}, author = {Giri, Varad B and Deepak, V. and Captain, Ashok and Das, Abhijit and Das, Sandeep and Rajkumar, KP and Rathish, RL and Gower, David J.} } @article {8352, title = {The role of wet-zone fragmentation in shaping biodiversity patterns in peninsular India: insights from the caecilian amphibian Gegeneophis }, journal = {JOURNAL OF BIOGEOGRAPHY }, volume = {43}, year = {2016}, month = {06/2016}, pages = {1091-1102 }, abstract = {

Aim Indian biodiversity is concentrated in the wet zone, which is disjunctly distributed in the north-east and in the peninsular Western and Eastern Ghats. The Eastern Ghats region is smaller and less well explored biologically and the affinities and origins of its biota poorly understood. Our aim was to assess whether divergence between east and west lineages might have been caused by fragmentation of the wet zone during Pleistocene climatic fluctuations, by Late Miocene wet-zone contraction or by more ancient events. We present the first dated phylogenetic test of these alternatives by inferring relationships and dating divergences within a wet-zone-restricted lineage endemic to the Eastern and Western Ghats.

}, doi = {10.1111/jbi.12710 }, author = {Gower, David J. and Agarwal, Ishan and Karanth, K. Praveen and Datta-Roy, Aniruddha and Giri, Varad B and Wilkinson, Mark and San Mauro, Diego} }