A new species of Abronia (Squamata: Anguidae) from the southeastern highlands of Guatemala

The various isolated populations of Abronia previously allocated to A. aurita are reevaluated, along with several closely related species, including A. anzuetoi from Volcan de Agua in south-central Guatemala and A. campbelli from east-central Guatemala. We conclude that A. aurita, as previously recognized, is a composite of at least three species: A. a aurita from the Verapaz highlands, A. vasconcelosii from the eastern portion of the Guatemalan Plateau, and a new species from the Miramundo area of the southeastern highlands. The new species is differentiated by morphological features and color pattern, and recently has been demonstrated to be distinctly divergent from other populations using molecular techniques. The status of the population from the southern Cuchumatanes Mountains remains unresolved, but probably is referable to A. vasconcelosii. The hypothesized phylogeny of these species suggests that, in the southern Guatemalan highlands, successive fragmentation of the once more widely distributed ancestral population inhabiting non-cloudforest habitats occurred from east to west.