Abronia gadovii, also known commonly as Gadow's alligator lizard and el escorpión de Gadow in Mexican Spanish, is a species of lizard in the family Anguidae. The species is endemic to the highlands of the Sierra Madre del Sur in Guerrero and Oaxaca, Mexico. Two subspecies are recognized:
Etymology The specific name, gadovii, is in honor of German ornithologist Hans Friedrich Gadow.Beolens, Bo; Watkins, Michael; Grayson, Michael (2011). The Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. xiii + 296 pp. . (Mesaspis gadovii, p. 96).
Habitat The preferred natural habitat of A. gadovii is forest, including second-growth forest.
Description A. gadovii may attain a snout-to-vent length (SVL) of about , plus a tail length of about .Boulenger GA (1913).
Diet A. gadovii preys predominately upon insects, and is known to also devour small lizards.Santos-Bibiano, Rufino; Woolrich-Piña, Guillermo A.; Beltrán-Sánchez, Elizabeth; Méndez-de la Cruz, Fausto R. (2016). "Mesaspis gadovii (Gadow's Alligator Lizard). Saurophagy". Mesoamerican Herpetology 3 (2): 484–486.
Reproduction A. gadovii is ovoviviparous.
Subspecies Two subspecies are recognized as being valid including the nominotypical subspecies. Abronia gadovii gadovii – Guerrero Abronia gadovii levigata – Oaxaca
Nota bene: A trinomial authority in parentheses indicates that the subspecies was originally described in a genus other than Abronia.
References
Further reading Boulenger GA (1913). "Descriptions of new Lizards in the Collection of the British Museum". Annals and Magazine of Natural History, Eighth Series 12: 563–566. (Gerrhonotus gadovii, new species. pp. 564–565). Good DA (1988). Phylogenetic Relationships Among Gerrhonotine Lizards: An Analysis of External Morphology. (University of California Publications in Zoology, Volume 121). Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press. x + 139 pp. . (Mesaspis gadovii, new combination, p. 82). Tihen JA (1949). "A Review of the Lizard Genus Barisia". University of Kansas Science Bulletin 33 (1): 217–254 + Plates I–II. (Barisia gadovii levigata, new subspecies, pp. 231–233 + Plate II, figures 3–5).