Murphy Robert W, Berry Kristin H, Edwards Taylor, Leviton Alan E, Lathrop Amy, Riedle J Daren
Centre for Biodiversity and Conservation Biology, Royal Ontario Museum, 100 Queen's Park, Toronto, ON Canada M5S 2C6.
Zookeys. 2011(113):39-71. doi: 10.3897/zookeys.113.1353. Epub 2011 Jun 28.
We investigate a cornucopia of problems associated with the identity of the desert tortoise, Gopherus agassizii (Cooper). The date of publication is found to be 1861, rather than 1863. Only one of the three original cotypes exists, and it is designated as the lectotype of the species. Another cotype is found to have been destroyed in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and subsequent fire. The third is lost. The lectotype is genetically confirmed to be from California, and not Arizona, USA as sometimes reported. Maternally, the holotype of Gopherus lepidocephalus (Ottley & Velázques Solis. 1989) from the Cape Region of Baja California Sur, Mexico is also from the Mojavian population of the desert tortoise, and not from Tiburon Island, Sonora, Mexico as previously proposed. A suite of characters serve to diagnose tortoises west and north of the Colorado River, the Mojavian population, from those east and south of the river in Arizona, USA, and Sonora and Sinaloa, Mexico, the Sonoran population. Species recognition is warranted and because Gopherus lepidocephalus is from the Mojavian population, no names are available for the Sonoran species. Thus, a new species, Gopherus morafkaisp. n., is named and this action reduces the distribution of Gopherus agassizii to only 30% of its former range. This reduction has important implications for the conservation and protection of Gopherus agassizii, which may deserve a higher level of protection.
我们研究了与沙漠陆龟（Gopherus agassizii，库珀）身份相关的一系列问题。发现其发表日期为1861年，而非1863年。三个原始模式标本中仅存一个，被指定为该物种的选模式标本。另一个模式标本在1906年旧金山地震及随后的火灾中被毁。第三个已丢失。经基因确认，选模式标本来自加利福尼亚州，而非有时报道的美国亚利桑那州。在母系方面，来自墨西哥南下加利福尼亚州科德角地区的小头陆龟（Gopherus lepidocephalus，奥特利和贝拉斯克斯·索利斯，1989年）的全模式标本也来自沙漠陆龟的莫哈韦种群，而非先前认为的墨西哥索诺拉州的蒂布龙岛。一系列特征可用于区分科罗拉多河以西和以北的陆龟，即莫哈韦种群，与美国亚利桑那州、墨西哥索诺拉州和锡那罗亚州科罗拉多河以东和以南的陆龟，即索诺兰种群。有必要进行物种识别，由于小头陆龟来自莫哈韦种群，因此没有适用于索诺兰物种的名称。因此，命名了一个新物种，即莫氏陆龟（Gopherus morafkaisp. n.），这一举措使阿加西兹陆龟的分布范围仅缩小至其先前范围的30%。这种缩小对阿加西兹陆龟的保护具有重要意义，它可能值得更高水平的保护。
