Hello,
John Rudge is right that Underwoodisaurus milii now is Nephrurus milii. But
this is so only because the last publication is what counts, not because it is
imposed by the evidence. John considers, and probably rightly, that the
strongest evidence is the paper by Melville et al. 2004. But this paper shows
"N. milii" to be the sister group of a clade of 4 Nephrurus species, not within
that clade. It could retain its separate genus name, Underwoodisaurus Wermuth.
The authors only say that given that the genus does no more exist (this they
don't say expressly but imply) the species belongs not with Phyllurus as
earlier thought (Kluge, Russell) but with Nephrurus. Fine, but why not retain
(or revive) Underwoodisaurus, which lacks the distinctive Nephrurus tail,
commemorating the deserving gecko researcher Garth Underwood and the deserving
gecko author Heinz Wermuth ?
Yehudah
Yehudah L. Werner
Professor Emeritus of Zoology
Department of Evolution, Systematics and Ecology
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
91904 Jerusalem, Israel
Tel. 972-2-6585874 (direct)
Fax 972-2-6584741 (departmental office)
e-mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Home tel./fax 972-2-5665576
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