Systematic revision of mountain dragons (Reptilia: Agamidae: Diploderma) in China, with descriptions of six new species and discussion on their conservation

Cryptic diversity not only introduces confusion to taxonomic studies, but it also poses major challenges to conservation and environmental legislation. One such troubling group are the Mountain Dragons in the genus Diploderma in Southwest China. Previous studies have suggested that the genus contains considerable cryptic diversity, particularly in the D. flaviceps complex. Owing to taxonomic confusion, micro-endemic lineages are still neglected by the Chinese wildlife protection laws, despite their urgent conservation needs. Combining multivariate morphological and multi-locus phylogenetic data, we provide the first integrative systematic revision of the genus Diploderma. Specifically, we confirm that the six examined populations of D. cf. flaviceps from the upper Jinsha and Yalong River Valleys in Sichuan and Yunnan Provinces represent six cryptic, undescribed lineages, and we describe each of them as a new species. With the updated taxonomy and distribution information, we discuss the taxonomy of the D. flaviceps complex in Southwest China, provide an updated diagnostic key along with distributional ranges for all species of the genus, and discuss some of the suspicious records of other congeners in China. Lastly, we evaluate the IUCN status of each of the six new species and highlight the major challenges for Diploderma conservation in China due to delayed environmental legislation and misleading conservation assessments.