Reexamination of the Iberian and North African Podarcis (Squamata: Lacertidae) phylogeny based on increased mitochondrial DNA sequencing.

In recent years, molecular studies have revealed complex patterns of diVerentiation within many European herpetological taxa. Wall lizards (Podarcis spp.) were one of the most studied groups, perhaps due to the complexity of deWning taxonomical entities within this genus by morphological analysis only, due to an extreme intraspeciWc variability coupled with low variation between species. Regarding Iberian forms, this diYculty is illustrated by the variety of diVerent proposals for the classiWcation of these lizards (Arnold and Burton, 1978; Geniez, 2001; Klemmer, 1959; Mertens and Müller, 1940; Sá-Sousa, 2001). Despite the controversy, the most common view (Arnold and Burton, 1978) accepted three species within the Iberian Peninsula: P. muralis Laurenti 1760, P. hispanica (Steindachner 1870), and P. bocagei (Seoane 1884). According to some authors (Barbadillo et al., 1999), P. hispanica was further subdivided into two subspecies: the nominal form, in the Iberian Peninsula, and P. h. vaucheri, in North Africa. Oliverio et al. (2000) also proposed the elevation of the African populations to the species rank as P. vaucheri on the basis of high genetic distances between single individuals from each side of the Strait of Gibraltar, obtained using the 12S rRNA gene. Genetic studies addressing the phylogeny of the whole genus Podarcis (Harris and Arnold, 1999; Harris et al., 2005; Oliverio et al., 2000) have shown that all Ibe-