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Journal of Threatened Taxa Building evidence for conservaton globally www.threatenedtaxa.org ISSN 0974-7907 (Online) | ISSN 0974-7893 (Print) Communication Underestimated diversity of Cnemaspis Strauch, 1887 (Sauria: Gekkonidae) on karst landscapes in Sarawak, East Malaysia, Borneo Izneil Nashriq & Indraneil Das 26 June 2021 | Vol. 13 | No. 7 | Pages: 18792–18799 DOI: 10.11609/jot.7195.13.7.18792-18799 For Focus, Scope, Aims, and Policies, visit htps://threatenedtaxa.org/index.php/JoTT/aims_scope For Artcle Submission Guidelines, visit htps://threatenedtaxa.org/index.php/JoTT/about/submissions For Policies against Scientfc Misconduct, visit htps://threatenedtaxa.org/index.php/JoTT/policies_various For reprints, contact <[email protected]> The opinions expressed by the authors do not refect the views of the Journal of Threatened Taxa, Wildlife Informaton Liaison Development Society, Zoo Outreach Organizaton, or any of the partners. The journal, the publisher, the host, and the part- Publisher & Host ners are not responsible for the accuracy of the politcal boundaries shown in the maps by the authors. Threatened Taxa Journal of Threatened Taxa | www.threatenedtaxa.org | 26 June 2021 | 13(7): 18792–18799 ISSN 0974-7907 (Online) | ISSN 0974-7893 (Print) OPEN ACCESS htps://doi.org/10.11609/jot.7195.13.7.18792-18799 #7195 | Received 15 February 2021 | Final received 30 March 2021 | Finally accepted 01 May 2021 2019 COMMUNICATION Underestmated diversity of Cnemaspis Strauch, 1887 (Sauria: Gekkonidae) on karst landscapes in Sarawak, East Malaysia, Borneo Izneil Nashriq 1 & Indraneil Das 2 1,2 Insttute of Biodiversity and Environmental Conservaton, Universit Malaysia Sarawak, 94300 Kota Samarahan, Sarawak, Malaysia. 1 [email protected], 2 [email protected] (corresponding author) Abstract: The paraphyletc group of Old World rock gecko genus Cnemaspis, currently comprises ~180 described species from Africa and Asia. The south-east Asian clade with 63 described species, is most diverse on the Thai-Malay Peninsula, with just fve species known from Borneo, an island biodiversity hotspot. Karst regions are known as centres for species endemism, and vast areas of caves and karst exist across northern Borneo. Fieldwork from 2017 to 2020 recovered additonal undescribed species of Cnemaspis from areas of karst forests in western and northern Sarawak. These discoveries emphasize the importance of preserving areas of limestone karst within rainforest areas for maintaining species diversity, as well as acceleratng research on documentng the biota. Keywords: Biodiversity, rock gecko, systematcs. Bahasa Malaysia: Kumpulan paraphyletc cicak batu genus Cnemaspis dari Dunia Lama, kini dianggarkan mempunyai ~180 spesis dikenal past dari Afrika dan Asia. Klad Asia tenggara dengan 63 spesis terhurai, dilihat lebih pelbagai di semenanjung Thai-Malay, dengan hanya lima spesis dikenal past dari Borneo, sebuah pulau kaya dengan kepelbagaian hidupan. Kawasan batu kapur diketahui sebagai kawasan tumpuan spesis endemik, dengan jumlah bilangan kawasan gua dan batu kapur yang besar di utara Borneo. Kerja lapangan daripada 2017 hingga 2020 telah menambahkan bilangan spesis Cnemaspis dari kawasan hutan batu kapur di barat dan utara Sarawak. Penemuan ini menekankan kepentngan memelihara kawasan batu kapur dalam hutan hujan tropika untuk menjaga kepelbagaian spesis, serta meningkatkan kajian dan dokumentasi biota. Editor: Raju Vyas, Vadodara, Gujarat, India. Date of publicaton: 26 June 2021 (online & print) Citaton: Nashriq, I. & I. Das (2021). Underestmated diversity of Cnemaspis Strauch, 1887 (Sauria: Gekkonidae) on karst landscapes in Sarawak, East Malaysia, Borneo. Journal of Threatened Taxa 13(7): 18792–18799. htps://doi.org/10.11609/jot.7195.13.7.18792-18799 Copyright: © Nashriq & Das 2021. Creatve Commons Atributon 4.0 Internatonal License. JoTT allows unrestricted use, reproducton, and distributon of this artcle in any medium by providing adequate credit to the author(s) and the source of publicaton. Funding: This research was supported by the Niche Research Grant Scheme of the Ministry of Higher Educaton, Government of Malaysia: NRGS/1087/2013(01); additonal funding came from the Sarawak Oil Palm Berhad: IA010200-0706-0015. Competng interests: The authors declare no competng interests. Author details: Izneil Nashriq holds an MSc in Animal Systematcs from the Insttute of Biodiversity and Environmental Conservaton, Universit Malaysia Sarawak. His felds of interest include taxonomy, ecology and biogeography. Since 2016, he have been a member of the Herpetofaunal Biology Lab, assistng with project involving herpetofaunal conservaton. Indraneil Das has a DPhil in Animal Ecology from the University of Oxford, and was a Fulbright Fellow at the Museum of Comparatve Zoology, Harvard University. He is currently Professor at the Insttute of Biodiversity and Environmental Conservaton, Universit Malaysia Sarawak, where he pursues his research and teaching interests in ecology, systematcs and conservaton biology. Author contributons: ID conceived, designed and obtained funding. ID and IN collected feld data and wrote the manuscript. Acknowledgements: We thank the Sarawak Forest Department for the issuance of collectng permits necessary for this study (147)JHS/NCCD/600-7/2/107/Jld.2 and Park Permit N0.74/2019). The staf of the Sarawak Forestry Corporaton allowed entrance to the natonal parks and other protected areas. We thank the Insttute of Biodiversity and Environmental Conservaton, Universit Malaysia Sarawak, for supportng feldwork and for lab assistance. We are grateful to Hayden Davis and his team at the Bauer lab, Villanova University for feld assistance and Alan Resetar and Joshua Mata of the Field Museum Natural History, Chicago, for permission to reproduce the image of the holotype of Cnemaspis dringi. Aaron Bauer and Pui Yong Min provided comments on an earlier draf. This research was supported by the Niche Research Grant Scheme of the Ministry of Higher Educaton, Government of Malaysia: NRGS/1087/2013(01); additonal funding came from the Sarawak Oil Palm Berhad: IA010200-0706-0015. 18792 Diversity of Cnemaspis on karst landscapes in Sarawak Nashriq & Das J TT INTRODUCTION Sumatra, Borneo, and Java, in additon to numerous small and mid-sized islands of some of these landmasses. Sarawak State of East Malaysia, located on the With its distributon extending from the subtropical northwestern region of the island Borneo, can be eastern Himalaya and Indo-China, to tropical areas of divided into two mineralizaton zones, corresponding Sundaland, the highest diversity is encountered on the to geological provinces, namely, West Sarawak that Thai-Malay Peninsula (Kurita et al. 2017). Phylogenetc hosts important metalliferous mineral deposits, which analyses of south-east Asian Cnemaspis have revealed geologically forms part of the Sunda Shield; and central- two divergent lineages: the southern Vietnamese northern Sarawak, which is renowned for fossil fuels, insular endemics and a lineage containing three major such as oil, gas and coal deposits. Limestone outcrops clades referred to as the Patani, northern Sunda, and cover 520km2 (or 0.4%) of Sarawak, and are reported southern Sunda clades distributed sporadically along to be shallow marine deposits ranging from Upper the northern, western and southern edges of the Sunda Carboniferous to Miocene (Gendang et al. 2008). Older Shelf, extending from southern Vietnam, Cambodia and limestone deposits are located in western Sarawak, Thailand, southward through the Thai-Malay Peninsula, while the younger one are found in central and to Borneo (Grismer et al. 2014, 2015; Kurita et al. 2017; northern Sarawak. Karstc regions have been regarded Wood et al. 2017). The Patani clade, restricted to the as biodiversity reservoirs that can be used as stock for southernmost porton of peninsular Thailand, is sister to repopulatng degraded environments during ecosystem the northern Sunda and southern Sunda sister clades. reassembly (Schilthuizen 2004). Past research conducted The northern Sunda clade extends from Vietnam to on karst formatons and adjacent limestone forests in central Peninsular Malaysia, while the southern Sunda the Sundas have resulted in improved knowledge of clade extends from southern Peninsular Malaysia and endemic species of fora and invertebrates, as well as Singapore, eastward through the Seribuat, Anambas, beter appreciaton of their endemicity. Microendemic and Natuna archipelagos to northwestern Borneo. karst-dwelling species of squamate reptles too have The frst member of the genus Cnemaspis on Borneo been identfed and described from such landscapes was reported by Gray (1845), described as Heteronata (Ellis & Pauwels 2012; Grismer et al. 2015). kendallii, based on two specimens presented to the In Borneo, recent discoveries of lizard species Britsh Museum of Natural History by Captain Edward have been made, especially in areas with forest cover, Belcher, with locality given simply as “Borneo”. including