New Chameleon Genus - Archaius

CleaTheChameleon said:

That is awesome! Any pictures yet?

Thanks for sharing!

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CleaTheChameleon said:

That is awesome! Any pictures yet?

Thanks for sharing!

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Chris Anderson said:

I thought a few of you might be interested to know that a new chameleon paper came out in yesterday's online early edition of Biological Letters. The paper looked at the genetic relationship of Calumma tigris to other chameleon species and found that its closest relatives are the Rieppeleon species from East Africa, not the other Calumma species from Madagascar. Its now believed that this species evolved after an oceanic dispersal event from East Africa to the Seychelles islands. As a result, the monotypic genus, Archaius, has been revalidated with Archaius tigris as the sole recognized species.

Calumma is a troubling genus and for a long time its been known that it likely represented at least 3 distinct genera. This is the first genus to be spun off of Calumma but I expect one or two more will follow at some point.

Here is the article citation and link:

Townsend, T.M, Tolley, K.A., Glaw, F., Böhme, W., and Vences, M. (2010). Eastward from Africa: palaeocurrent-mediated chameleon dispersal to the Seychelles islands. Biol. Lett. [Epub ahead of print]. Available from http://rsbl.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/early/2010/09/07/rsbl.2010.0701

Chris

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VeiledOwner87 said:

chris, just wondering.. are there only 3 species of chameleon in madagascar? furcifer calumma and brookesia? ive never done much reading on what comes out of madagascar but am interested to know.

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Chris Anderson said:

You can see a current list of all the species in each genera here: http://www.chameleoninfo.com/Species_Profiles.html

Chris

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Chris Anderson said:

Those are genera, not species. Those are the only 3 genera that are currently described from Madagascar, but there are many species in each of those genera. As I mentioned, however, Calumma will likely be split once or twice again yet as some of the species within it are actually not very closely related. You can see a current list of all the species in each genera here: http://www.chameleoninfo.com/Species_Profiles.html

Chris

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laurie said:

As usual thanks Chris, I do count on you helping me learn more and more about these fascinating animals. Maybe you could offer a few of us a beginner reading list? If others are insulted just send it to me.

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morpheon said:

Count me in too, as i just PMed Chris on a similar subject!

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