Revised distributions of some species in the genus Diploderma (Reptilia: Agamamidae) in China

Although recent studies have made considerable progresses on the taxonomy of the genus Diploderma, there are still many questionable records of Diploderma species in China. Among these are suspicious sympatric distributions of congeners, locality records that fall well outside the recognized range of a given species, and records that are in zoogeographic regions distinct from those of the type localities. Combining both morphological and molecular phylogenetic data, some of the suspicious and questionable records of Diploderma are revised. Specifically, precious records of D. cf. flaviceps in west-central Yunnan province, Tibet Autonomous Region, Suchuan, Gansu and Hubei provinces represent misidentifications of the recognized species, which are D. chapaense, D. batangense, and D. micangshanense, respectively. The records of D. micangshanense and D. batangense in Hubei province and Tibet Autonomous Region represent new province records for the corresponding province, respectively. In addition, the record of D. varcoae from Xishuangbanna in southern Yannan province is a mistake, and the referred specimens were actually collected from the Jizu Mountain in Dali, west-central Yunnan province instead. Furthermore, the record of D. cf. yunnanense in south-central Yunnan province is a misidentification of D. chapaense, which expands the distribution of this previously believed micro-endemic species northwestwards. Lastly, the distribution data for all recognized Diploderma species in China are updated based on the current studies and recent literatures, and the negative impacts of outdated taxonomy and distributional data in the Chinese natural history collections are also discussed. [This article is written in Chinese]