Tropidurus hispidus, Peters' Lava Lizard, is a neotropical ground lizard in the Tropidurus genus.
Similar species: Snakes And Lizards
JungleDragon is a nature and wildlife community for photographers, travellers and anyone who loves nature. We're genuine, free, ad-free and beautiful.
Tropidurus hispidus, Peters' Lava Lizard, is a neotropical ground lizard in the Tropidurus genus.
comments (5)
Info here:
https://reptile-database.reptarium.cz/species?genus=Tropidurus&species=hispidus
https://eol.org/pages/790358/names
Please correct me if I am wrong. Posted 3 years ago
iNat suggests they see them as two separate species:
https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/114590-Tropidurus-hispidus
https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/38961-Tropidurus-torquatus
Note the striked-through names in the names section of the latter record. Here they take a stance, suggesting not to use those synonyms. Regardless of whether it is the correct stance, of course.
You're right about eol.org listing the synonym you mention, yet if you actually search for synonym name independently, there's no search results. This is at least a (weak) hint that it's perhaps not a favorable name?
GBIF confirms your suggested synonym:
https://www.gbif.org/species/8957561
...along with about 10 others. Yet just like with eol.org, search directly for Tropiduras torquatus, and it doesn't even return a species record.
Not sure what to make of it, just listing my findings.
Posted 3 years ago
In my experience, both iNat and eol.org document the latest status the best they can, meaning they are connected to the various individual databases (like reptiledb) and get updates from them. Usually this leads to a consistent conclusion between them, and it's the best/latest status we have, as far as I know.
When these conclusions somewhat differ between them, I'm not sure what to do next. For now I'd say the synonym you mention is 100% valid, but it's not clear if its the preferred one.
It's not a big issue, should our conclusions change over time, it's possible to map multiple names to a singular species record. Posted 3 years ago