101 Deep Mitochondrial and Morphological Diferen taton of Hemidactylus persicus Anderson, 1872 (Squamata: Gekkonidae) in Iran Mahboubeh Sadat Hosseinzadeh 1 , Mansour Aliabadian 2,3 , Eskandar Rastegar-pouyani 4 1 Department of Biology, Faculty of Sciences, University of Birjand, Birjand, Iran 2 Department of Biology, Faculty of Sciences, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Mashhad, Iran 3 Research Department of Zoological Innovatons (RDZI), Insttute of Applied Zoology, Faculty of Sciences, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Mashhad, Iran 4 Department of Biology, Faculty of Science, Hakim Sabzevari University, Sabzevar, Iran Herpetological Journal FULL PAPER Correspondence: Mahboubeh S. Hosseinzadeh (m.hosseinzadeh@birjand.ac.ir) Volume 28 (July 2018), 101- 109 Published by the Britsh Herpetological Society With currently 149 species, Hemidactylus Oken, 1817 is one of the most species-rich genera of the family Gekkonidae. In this study, 50 Hemidactylus persicus and H. romeshkanicus from southern Iran and three specimens of the newly described species H. kurdicus from north-eastern Iraq were screened using sequences of the mitochondrial 12S rRNA gene (approximately 400 bp) with two H. hajarensis as outgroups. In additon, 58 specimens were analysed morphologically using 25 mensural and six meristc characters. The genetc data recovered six well supported clades of H. persicus and H. romeshkanicus in southern Iran, which also showed morphological diferentaton with the excepton of specimens from Khuzestan and Fars provinces. Principal Coordinates Analysis (PCoA) and haplotype networks are compatble with our phylogenetc tree and morphological analyses. These fndings highlight deep mitochondrial and morphological variaton of H. persicus from Iran. Interestngly, our phylogenetc inference revealed that H. romeshkanicus should be regarded as a valid species, whereas H. kurdicus is not a distnct evolutonary lineage and synonymous with H. romeshkanicus. Key words: Gekkonidae; Iranian plateau; Phylogeny; Radiaton; Species complex IntroductIon T he diverse herpetofauna of the Iranian plateau has been of interest to herpetologists, partcularly with respect to ecology and zoogeography (e.g., Anderson, 1968; Hosseinzadeh et al., 2014a). Topographically, the Iranian plateau consists of a complex of mountain chains enclosing two main mountain ranges: the Elburz, which extends from north-west to north-east, and the Zagros, which extends from north-west to south-eastern Iran (Fisher, 1968). Descriptons of species using molecular tools resulted in the detecton of cryptc taxa, and the raising of geographically isolated subspecies to the rank of species (Ahmadzadeh et al., 2013; Ficetola et al., 2013). However, further molecular and integratve studies are necessary in order to gain a more complete understanding of the Iranian herpetofauna. With 149 recognised species (Uetz et al., 2018), the genus Hemidactylus Oken, 1817 is one of the most species-rich genera of the family Gekkonidae. It is globally distributed in tropical and subtropical regions. Four species of Hemidactylus have been reported from Iran: Hemidactylus persicus Anderson, 1872, H. robustus Heyden, 1827, H. flaviviridis Rüppell, 1840, and H. romeshkanicus Torki 2011 (Anderson, 1999; Bauer et al., 2006; Torki et al., 2011; Šmíd et al., 2014; Hosseinzadeh et al., 2014b). Hemidactylus persicus is distributed in the northern Arabian Peninsula, southern Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Pakistan and India (Sindaco & Jeremčenko, 2008; Carranza & Arnold, 2012; Khan, 2013; Castlla et al., 2013; Šmíd et al., 2014). Molecular studies of Iranian H. persicus have shown a high level of genetc diferentaton (Carranza & Arnold, 2012; Šmíd et al., 2013). Recently, a new species, H. kurdicus, has been reported from the oak woodlands of Zagros forest steppe of Qara Dagh Mountains, Sulaimani, north-eastern Iraq (Safaei-Mahroo et al., 2017). The occupation of Iran by H. persicus in different climates and habitats along with deep intraspecific variation suggests that it might comprise a species complex. According to Torki et al. (2011), H. romeshkanicus is endemic to Iran, inhabitng western slopes of the Zagros Mountains and southern Lorestan. According to Šmíd et al. (2014), the species probably belongs to the arid clade together with its sister taxa H. persicus, H. robustus and H. turcicus. Here, we study the genetc variability of H. persicus across its entre range in the Iranian Plateau using 12S rRNA mtDNA sequences, together with multivariate analyses of mensural and meristc characters. Further, we evaluate the validity of H. romeshkanicus using these methods.