Researchers from Pakistan, Germany and Slovakia, while trekking through the rain-drenched foothills of Lower Dir in northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, have discovered a rare grass lizard (skink) that had remained one of herpetology’s greatest mysteries since it was first recorded in Afghanistan.
Scientists from Pakistan, Germany, Slovakia discover rare grass lizard in Lower Dir
PESHAWAR, Jul 29 (APP): Researchers from Pakistan, Germany and Slovakia, while trekking through the rain-drenched foothills of Lower Dir in northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, have discovered a rare grass lizard (skink) that had remained one of herpetology’s greatest mysteries since it was first recorded in Afghanistan.
Rafaqat Masroor who is also Curator of Pakistan Museum of Natural History was part of the team of scientists.
In the spring of 1972, high in the rugged, sun-baked valleys of eastern Afghanistan, a researcher named Clas Naumann picked up a small, striped lizard basking on a rock face. He tagged it, packed it away, and sent it to a museum in Germany.
For the next fifty years, that single preserved specimen sat in a glass jar like a forgotten cold case.
The elusive reptile had puzzled herpetologists for decades after its only known sighting in Afghanistan.
According to new study recently accepted for publication and currently in the production stage proposes that the Afghanistan and Lower Dir population represents a distinct species within the genus Heremites.
The proposed name of the new specie is Heremites afghanicus, with “Afghan or Dir grass skink” suggested as its English common name.
“Now the solitary lizard had been found more than 700 kilometers away from its nearest known relatives, marooned on the wrong side of vast desert basins and the towering peaks of the Hindu Kush,” reads the study.
Scientists argued for decades: Was it a lost wanderer? A misidentified local species? Or a ghostly remnant of an ancient past?
Externally, the skinks resemble populations occurring farther west, particularly in Iran. This similarity initially obscured their evolutionary distinctiveness.
“These lizards managed to hide in plain sight for decades,” explained lead authors Dr. Daniel Jablonski of Comenius University in Bratislava and Dr. Rafaqat Masroor of the Pakistan Museum of Natural History.
“In the field, they look remarkably like the population from Iran. But when we unlocked their genetic code as well as in-depth morphology, the story changed completely.”
Using advanced multi-locus DNA sequencing, the team discovered that the Afghan/Dir grass skink isn’t just a stray population that got lost. Genetic sequence comparisons showed massive mitochondrial DNA divergence rates of up to 15.8% to 21% from related Western Palearctic species.
The genetic data revealed that Heremites afghanicus split from its western cousins during the Late Miocene epoch. Isolated in the deep river valleys and rocky slopes where the Palearctic and Oriental worlds overlap, the skink quietly carved out its own evolutionary path.
The recognition of H. afghanicus demonstrates the continuing value of natural-history collections.
A specimen preserved for half a century provided the historical evidence needed to connect an isolated Afghan record with a newly documented population in Pakistan.
Together, museum research, field surveys and molecular analyses revealed that the skink was not simply a geographically displaced population, but part of an independently evolving lineage.
Because the skink’s habitat spans Lower Dir in Pakistan and Nangarhar in Afghanistan, protecting the species will require shared ecological data across borders, unlocking a Cross-Border Ecological Sanctuary.
