An overlooked pink species of land iguana in the Galápagos

doi:10.1073/pnas.0806339106

An overlooked pink species of land iguana in the Galápagos

^aDipartimento di Biologia, Università Tor Vergata, 00133 Rome, Italy;
^bCharles Darwin Foundation, Puerto Ayora, Galápagos Islands, Ecuador;
^cDepartment of Biology and Museum of Southwestern Biology, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM 87131; and
^dGalápagos National Park Service, Puerto Ayora, Galápagos Islands, Ecuador

Edited by Francisco J. Ayala, University of California, Irvine, CA, and approved November 11, 2008 (received for review July 2, 2008)

Abstract

Despite the attention given to them, the Galápagos have not yet finished offering evolutionary novelties. When Darwin visited the Galápagos, he observed both marine (Amblyrhynchus) and land (Conolophus) iguanas but did not encounter a rare pink black-striped land iguana (herein referred to as “rosada,” meaning “pink” in Spanish), which, surprisingly, remained unseen until 1986. Here, we show that substantial genetic isolation exists between the rosada and syntopic yellow forms and that the rosada is basal to extant taxonomically recognized Galápagos land iguanas. The rosada, whose present distribution is a conundrum, is a relict lineage whose origin dates back to a period when at least some of the present-day islands had not yet formed. So far, this species is the only evidence of ancient diversification along the Galápagos land iguana lineage and documents one of the oldest events of divergence ever recorded in the Galápagos. Conservation efforts are needed to prevent this form, identified by us as a good species, from extinction.

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Footnotes

¹To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: gabriele.gentile{at}uniroma2.it
Author contributions: G.G. designed research; G.G., A.F., C.M., H.L.S., H.M.S., W.T., and V.S. performed research; G.G. and A.F. analyzed data; and G.G. wrote the paper.
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
This article is a PNAS Direct Submission.
Data deposition: The sequences reported in this paper have been deposited in the GenBank database [accession nos. FJ536155–FJ536164 (CR) and FJ536145–FJ536154 (cytb) for Amblyrhynchus and FJ536004–FJ536144 (CR) and FJ535863–FJ536003 (cytb) for Conolophus].
↵ This paper and the name “rosada” used herein are disclaimed for nomenclatural purpose [Articles 8.2, 8.3 in ICZN International Code of Zoological Nomenclature. Fourth Edition (ITZN, Padova, 1999)]. We postpone a formal description.
This article contains supporting information online at www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/0806339106/DCSupplemental.