New species dropped: 5 new pygmy chameleons, all fun size!

Excited to share my recent paper on pygmy chameleons in the Albertine Rift of Africa. 10 years in the making for this paper which began when I started my PhD.

Zootaxa (link to paper: https://mapress.com/zt/article/view/zootaxa.5458.4.1)

Pygmy Chameleon from the Rwenzori Mountains

#1: Cryptic species, redux

Previously, we used phylogenetic analyses to show that 6 genetic lineages were contained within the taxon R. boulengeri. The genetically distinct lineages were phenotypically similar but occurred in non-overlapping elevational ranges.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1055790317304219

#2: New species born

I then conducted morphological analyses on >130 specimens from >20 sites across the region, including the type specimens of R. boulengeri, which further supported the notion that the taxonomy of the species did not match the diversity, thus 5 new species were described:

R. plumptrei (named for Andrew Plumptre)

R. nalubaale (named for Luganda word for "godess")

R. bombayi (named or African explorer Sidi Mubarak Bombay)

R. msitugrabensis (named for Albertine Rift )

R. monteslunae (named for "Mountains of the Moon" aka Rwenzori Mountains)

#3: Seeing in UV

One of the new species exhibited bone fluorescence from its facial tubercles when examined under ultraviolet light (a first for the genus)

#4: Elevation matters

Several new species were found in adjacent habitats but were separated by elevation, while species that overlapped in elevation were allopatric (niche differentiation via parapatric speciation)

#5: Virgin birth

Rhampholeon nalubaale was restricted to low-elevation forests, had low intraspecific genetic differentiation from localities >600 km apart, and only females were found among nearly 100 examined specimens from about 10 different localities (possible case of parthenogenesis)

#5: Synonymize this

Rhampholeon affinis, a synonym of R. spectrum, was confirmed to be correctly synonymized based on examination of type specimens (either the westernmost record of R. spectrum, or possible incorrect locality information from original 1911 paper)

(courtesy Wolfgang Böhme)