Phylogeography, geographic variation, and taxonomy of the Bent-toed Gecko Cyrtodactylus quadrivirgatus Taylor, 1962 from Peninsular Malaysia with the description of a new swamp dwelling species

A review of the taxonomic status of the Bent-toed Gecko Cyrtodactylus quadrivirgatus Taylor, 1962 based on a molecular phylogeny, scalation, and color pattern analyses indicate that it is composed of a single, recently expanding, widespread population with weakly supported phylogeographic substructuring with no discrete morphological differentiation between populations. However, based on sampling, significant mean differences in selected scale counts occur between some populations. The molecular phylogeny and morphological analysis strongly indicate lineage independence between a subset of individuals from the Bukit Panchor, Penang population and their closest relative C. pantiensis Grismer, Chan, Grismer, Wood &Belabut, 2008 from southern Peninsular Malaysia. Furthermore, the analyses indicate that the individuals of this subset are conspecific and not part of C. quadrivirgatus as previously suggested. Additionally, this subset is morphologically distinct from all other Sundaland species of Cyrtodactylus, and as such is described herein as Cyrtodactylus payacola sp. nov.