Roitberg E. S. (1999). Morphological differentiation between the nominative and Daghestanian forms
of Lacerta caucasica (Sauria, Lacertidae) complex in their contact zone: sympatric populations of Daghestan and south-eastern Chechen Republic. – Russian Journal of Zoology, 3, 1: 43-52.
Five sympatric populations of Lacerta caucasica (s. str.) and L. daghestanica from the eastern North Caucasus were examined for color pattern (qualitatively) and seven scalation and five morphometric characters by using multivariate and univariate biometrical procedures. In all five localities, daghestanica form differs from caucasica one in having more scales in different meristic rows (scales around midbody, ventrals, femoral pores, superciliary granules, temporals, but not circumanalia), relatively long, narrow and flattened head and longer hindlegs. The degree of phenetic separation between these two sympatric forms was found to vary from a distinct specific level in the South-East of Chechen Republic to a slight intergradation in southwestern Daghestan. These differences in the level of morphological separation manifest themselves both in scalation and morphometry, but the latter set of characteristic was less discriminative. Taking into account some features of geographic relations between the daghestanica and caucasica forms, it was suggested that different portions of their contact zone had fixed different stages of evolutionary divergence.
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