Discoveries

Species new to science.

Formal descriptions the lab has contributed to: new species, and a new genus, spanning plants, centipedes, lizards and caecilians of peninsular India and the Western Ghats.

Plants

04 species

2021

Phyllanthus palakondensis

K. Raja Kullayiswamy, N. Sarojini Devi & K. Praveen Karanth (2021) Phyllanthus palakondensis sp. nov. (Phyllanthaceae) from Eastern Ghats of Andhra Pradesh, India. Nordic Journal of Botany 39(11): njb.03319.

doi:10.1111/njb.03319

Phyllanthus palakondensis growing from a crevice in bare rock, its slender wiry branches lined with small rounded leaves. — P. palakondensis

2014

Friesodielsia sahyadrica

Navendu V. Page & Siddharthan Surveswaran (2014) Friesodielsia sahyadrica (Annonaceae), a peculiar new species from the Western Ghats, India. Phytotaxa 158(3): 275–282.

2014

Brachystelma mahajanii

Brachystelma vartakii

Sharad S. Kambale, Siddharthan Surveswaran & Shrirang R. Yadav (2014) Two new species of Brachystelma Sims (Apocynaceae: Asclepiadoideae-Ceropegieae) from the Western Ghats of India. Kew Bulletin 69: 9493.

doi:10.1007/s12225-014-9493-1

Centipedes

02 species

2013

Digitipes periyarensis

Digitipes jangii

Jahnavi Joshi & Gregory D. Edgecombe (2013) Revision of the scolopendrid centipede Digitipes Attems, 1930, from India (Chilopoda: Scolopendromorpha): reconciling molecular and morphological estimates of species diversity. Zootaxa 3626(1): 99–145.

Lizards

14 species

2019

Dravidogecko douglasadamsi

Dravidogecko smithi

Dravidogecko meghamalaiensis

Dravidogecko janakiae

Dravidogecko tholpalli

Dravidogecko septentrionalis

R. Chaitanya, Varad B. Giri, V. Deepak, Aniruddha Datta-Roy, B. H. C. K. Murthy & Praveen Karanth (2019) Diversification in the mountains: a generic reappraisal of the Western Ghats endemic gecko genus Dravidogecko Smith, 1933 (Squamata: Gekkonidae) with descriptions of six new species. Zootaxa 4688(1): 1–56.

doi:10.11646/zootaxa.4688.1.1

A slender grey-brown gecko on pale cream rock, seen from above, its long tail banded in dark brown and white. — D. douglasadamsi© Karthik AK

An ochre-brown gecko on a pale granite boulder at night, its back scattered with dark spots and its tail marked with dark bands. — D. smithi

A pale cream gecko with bold dark blotches down its back, resting on rust-red moss, its tail strongly banded. — D. meghamalaiensis

A pale pinkish gecko finely speckled with dark brown, on dry brown wood, its banded tail curved back alongside its body. — D. janakiae© Harikrishnan S

A warm brown gecko with dark mottling on speckled granite, its large golden eye catching the light and its tail boldly banded in cream and dark brown. — D. tholpalli© Harikrishnan S

An olive-brown gecko blotched with dark brown on reddish weathered wood, its banded tail curled around behind it. — D. septentrionalis© Nilanjan M

2015

Sarada darwini

Sarada superba

Sitana visiri

Sitana laticeps

Sitana spinaecephalus

Described together with the new genus Sarada

V. Deepak, Varad B. Giri, Mohammad Asif, Sushil Kumar Dutta, Raju Vyas, Amod M. Zambre, Harshal Bhosale & Praveen Karanth (2015) Systematics and phylogeny of Sitana (Reptilia: Agamidae) of Peninsular India, with description of one new genus and five new species. Contributions to Zoology.

2015

Hemidactylus yajurvedi

B.H.C.K. Murthy, Aaron Bauer, Aparna Lajmi, Ishan Agarwal & Varad B. Giri (2015) A new rock dwelling Hemidactylus (Squamata: Gekkonidae) from Chhattisgarh, India. Zootaxa 4021(2): 334–350.

2013

Sphenomorphus apalpebratus

Aniruddha Datta-Roy, Indraneil Das, Aaron M. Bauer, Ronald K. Lyngdoh Tron & Praveen Karanth (2013) Lizard wears shades. A spectacled Sphenomorphus (Squamata: Scincidae) from the sacred forests of Mawphlang, Meghalaya, north-east India. Zootaxa 3701(2): 257–276.

2011

Hemidactylus graniticolus

Ishan Agarwal, Varad B. Giri & Aaron M. Bauer (2011) A new cryptic rock-dwelling Hemidactylus (Squamata: Gekkonidae) from south India. Zootaxa 2765: 21–37.

Caecilians

01 species

2013

Gegeneophis orientalis

Ishan Agarwal, Mark Wilkinson, Pratyush P. Mohapatra, Sushil K. Dutta, Varad B. Giri & David J. Gower (2013) The first teresomatan caecilian (Amphibia: Gymnophiona) from the Eastern Ghats of India: a new species of Gegeneophis Peters, 1880. Zootaxa 3696(4): 534–546.

From specimen to species, it starts with the phylogeny.

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