title: The Knight and the King: two new species of giant bent-toed gecko (Cyrtodactylus, Gekkonidae, Squamata) from northern New Guinea, with comments on endemism in the North Papuan Mountains.
abstract: The diverse biota of New Guinea includes many nominally widespread species that actually comprise multiple deeply divergent lineages with more localised histories of evolution. Here we investigate the systematics of the very large geckos of the Cyrtodactylus novaeguineae complex using molecular and morphological data. These data reveal two widespread and divergent lineages that can be distinguished from each other, and from type material of Cyrtodactylus novaeguineae, by aspects of size, build, coloration and male scalation. On the basis of these differences we describe two new species. Both have wide distributions that overlap extensively in the foothill forests of the North Papuan Mountains, however one is seemingly restricted to hill and lower montane forests on the ranges themselves, while the other is more widespread throughout the surrounding lowlands. The taxon endemic to the North Papuan Mountains is related to an apparently lowland form currently known only from Waigeo and Batanta Island far to the west - hinting at a history on island arcs that accreted to form the North Papuan Mountains.
authors.affiliation: Division of Evolution, Ecology & Genetics, Research School of Biology, The Australian National University, Canberra, ACT 0200, Australia; Department of Zoology, University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria 3052, Australia, and Department of Sciences, Museum Victoria, GPO Box 666, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
authors.forename: Paul M
authors.initials: PM
authors.lastname: Oliver
authors.affiliation: South Australian Museum, Adelaide, South Australia 5000, Australia.
authors.forename: Stephen J
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: Richards
authors.affiliation: Herpetology Division, Museum Zoologicum Bogoriense, Research Center for Biology, Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI), Indonesia.
authors.lastname: Mumpuni
authors.affiliation: Senckenberg Naturhistorische Sammlungen Dresden, Museum für Tierkunde, Dresden, Germany.
authors.forename: Herbert
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Rösler
keywords: Arc accretion; Endemism; Indonesia; Papua New Guinea; Papua Province; Sepik Basin; lizard; orogeny