Molecular phylogeny and morphological comparisons of the genus Hebius Thompson, 1913 (Reptilia: Squamata: Colubridae) uncover a new taxon from Yunnan Province, China, and support revalidation of Hebius septemlineatus (Schmidt, 1925)
State Key Laboratory of Genetic Resources and Evolution State, Kunming Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming, Yunnan 650223, China
2.
Kunming College of Life Science, University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming, Yunnan 650204, China
3.
Key Laboratory for Conserving Wildlife with Small Populations in Yunnan, Southwest Forestry University, Kunming, Yunnan 650224, China
4.
Chinese Research Academy of Environmental Sciences, Beijing 100012, China
5.
Faculty of Agriculture, Forest and Food Engineering, Yibin University, Yibin, Sichuan 644007, China
Funds:
This work was supported by the Second Tibetan Plateau Scientific Expedition and Research (STEP) Program (2019QZKK0501), Biodiversity Survey and Assessment Project of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, China (2019HJ2096001006), Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) (XDA20050201), Digitalization, Development and Application of Biotic Resource (202002AA100007), Sciences and Technology Department of Sichuan Province (2020YFSY0033) and State Key Laboratory of Genetic Resources and Evolution, Kunming Institute of Zoology, CAS (GREKF 19-02), and Animal Branch of the Germplasm Bank of Wild Species, CAS (Large Research Infrastructure Funding)
We describe a new species of the genus Hebius and provide evidence for the validity of H. septemlineatuscomb. nov. . Morphological and molecular analyses of Hebius specimens collected in Yunnan Province, China, revealed three distinct lineages, namely the newly described Hebius weixiensissp. nov. , as well as H. octolineatus (Boulenger, 1904), and H. septemlineatuscomb. nov. (Schmidt 1925), which is removed from synonymy with H. octolineatus. Based on mitochondrial genealogy, Hebius weixiensissp. nov. is sister to H. septemlineatuscomb. nov. , while H. octolineatus is sister to H. bitaeniatus. The new species and H. septemlineatuscomb. nov. showed considerable genetic divergence from their recognized congeners (uncorrected P-distance ≥3.9%). Furthermore, the new species and H. septemlineatuscomb. nov. can be diagnosed from closely related congeners by a combination of pholidosis characters.
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Figure 1. Phylogenetic relationships of genus Hebius, and distribution and photo of Hebius weixiensissp. nov., H.septemlineatuscomb. nov. and H. octolineatus