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We examined two specimens of short-tailed, unstriped Ichthyophis Fitzinger, 1843 collected in 1949 from the Anamalai Hills of the Western Ghats of peninsular India. One of these specimens was identified previously as the peninsular Indian I. subterrestris Taylor, 1960, the other as I. sikkimensis Taylor, 1960, a species known otherwise only from Nepal and the Indian states of Sikkim and West Bengal, approximately 2,200 km to the northeast. We find that the two specimens in question are conspecific, that both have been misidentified and that the pair together probably belong to an undescribed species. Our conclusion that I. sikkimensis does not occur in peninsular India removes a major biogeographic anomaly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article provides information on a study which analyzed putative Hemidactylus (H.) brookii gekkonid lizard taxonomy through a molecular systematic approach. The two recovered clades consisted of specimens from Borneo, Myanmar, Peninsular Malaysia and Karnataka, southwestern India, as well as Sri Lanka, Mauritius and Kerala, southwestern India. It explains that maximum parsimony and Bayesian optimality criteria were utilized to examine phylogenetic relationships among the samples. In addition, genomic DNA was isolated from 95-100 percent ethanol-preserved tail or liver samples.