Repeated evolution of sympatric, palaeoendemic species in closely related, co-distributed lineages of HemiphyllodactylusBleeker, 1860 (Squamata: Gekkonidae) across a sky-island archipelago in Peninsular Malaysia

Abstract

A time-calibrated phylogenetic tree indicates that the evolution of sympatric, montane, endemic species from closely related, co-distributed lineages of the Hemiphyllodactylus harterti group were not the result of rapid, forest-driven, climatic oscillations of the Last Glacial Maximum, but rather the result of infrequent episodes of environmental fluctuation during the Late Miocene. This hypothesis is supported by genetic divergences (based on the mitochondrial gene ND2) between the three major lineages of the H.harterti group (17.5-25.1%), their constituent species (9.4-14.3%), and the evolution of discrete, diagnostic, morphological, and colour pattern characteristics between each species. Sister species pairs from two of the three lineages occur in sympatry on mountain tops from opposite sides of the Thai-Malay Peninsula, but the lineages to which each pair belongs are not sister lineages. A newly discovered species from Gunung Tebu, Terengganu State, Hemiphyllodactylus bintiksp.nov., is described.