One other endemic reptile species has been added to the biodiversity of Cyprus as introduced on Monday by the College of Cyprus (UCy).
In accordance with a UCy press launch, the lizard generally known as “kοurkoutas” in Cyprus corresponds to a definite species (Laudakia cypriaca), which is discovered solely in Cyprus and which now belongs to the nation`s vital biodiversity together with the Cypriot snake (Hierophis cypriensis) and the Troodos lizard (Phoenicolacerta troodica).
These lizards had been thought to correspond to a species with a large distribution all through the Jap Mediterranean, nevertheless, as reported, the examine of the genetic materials (DNA), which was carried out on the Laboratory of Ecology and Biodiversity of the Division of Organic Sciences of the College of Cyprus, in collaboration with the Pure Historical past Museum of Crete of the College of Crete and researchers from Austria, Germany and Turkey, confirmed that the Cyprus lizard corresponds to a definite species, revealing additionally the existence of two different species, with the previous (Laudakia vulgaris) spreading to the neighbouring international locations of the Close to East (Syria, Jordan, Israel and Egypt) and the latter (Laudakia stellio) restricted to Greece and Turkey.
Lastly, it’s famous that the examine outcomes had been printed within the distinguished scientific journal Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society and supplied vital information on the evolution of those animals within the jap Mediterranean, such because the estimation of the time intervals throughout which every of their totally different lineages developed, in keeping with which it seems that kourkoutas was diversified in Cyprus about 2.5 million years in the past firstly of the “Ice Age”, which introduced the coasts of Cyprus nearer to these of Syria and Israel.