Studying morphological and environmental characteristics of the Plateau Snake Skink Ophiomorus nuchalis Nilson and Andrén, 1978 (Sauria: Scincidae) in Central Plateau ofIran

The nocturnal burrowing skinks of genus Ophiomorus is composed of 11 species (Anderson & Leviton, 1966; Nilson & Andrén, 1978; Anderson, 1999; Kazemi et al., 2011) and are distributed from southern Balkans to Sindhian deserts in India (Anderson & Leviton, 1966; Sindaco & Jeremčenko, 2008). Seven species of Ophiomorus have been recorded from Iran including O. blanfordi (Boulenger, 1887); O. brevipes (Blanford, 1874); O. nuchalis (Nilson & Andrén, 1978); O. persicus (Steindachner, 1867); O. streeti (Anderson and Leviton, 1966); O. tridactylus (Blyth, 1853); O. maranjabensis (Kazemi et al., 2011)(Anderson, 1999; Rastegar-Pouyani et al., 2008; Kazemi et al., 2011; Safaei-Mahroo et al., 2015). According to Greer and Wilson (2001), the scincid lizard is more attractive case to study because of having ancestral characters and limb reduction. In the case, O. nuchalis is one of the shink species with having the most primitive limb morphology which has four digits on the manus and three on the pes (Greer & Wilson, 2001; Fig. 4). A comprehensive phylogenetic cladistic analysis on the genus Ophiomorus was done by Greer and Wilson (2001). Their analysis confirmed Ophiomorus as a monophyletic genus and the eastern species clade as monophyletic. The western group of species was expressed as polyphyletic in origin. The O. nuchalis is located is the western group. Another study has been mentioned molecular phylogenetic relationships of O. punctatissimus in Aegean trench but phylogenetic relationship among all Iranian Ophiomorus still remain unclear (Poulakakis et al., 2008) .