#caudicincta

[snakemanaustralia]

ABSTRACT The Australian Ring-tailed Dragons of the Genus Ctenophorus Fitzinger, 1843, Subgenus Tachyon Wells and Wellington, 1985 as defined by Hoser in 2015, have been generally neglected in their taxonomy since the publication of Wells and Wellington (1985). Those authors formally divided the species Grammatophora caudicincta Günther, 1875 six ways in line with the earlier subspecies divisions of Storr (1967) and placed all into their newly created genus Tachyon. This arrangement was vehemently opposed by a group of pseudo-scientists known as the Wolfgang Wüster gang for reasons of personal animosity rather than science. Furthermore due to the ruthless and improper methods of the group (as demonstrated in a war-cry document called Kaiser et al. 2013), they have effectively forced other publishing herpetologists to refuse to accept the Wells and Wellington taxonomy and nomenclature in the three and half decades since the 1985 paper of Wells and Wellington. In spite of lies, deception and so-called smoke and mirrors as practiced by the Wolfgang Wüster gang, science progresses and in line with this, Melville et al. (2016) not only broadly validated the much lampooned taxonomy and nomenclature of Wells and Wellington (1985), but furthermore wholly validated the taxonomy of Hoser in 2015. Melville et al. (2016) also provided sound evidence of the presence of at least seven more unnamed species in the complex, all diverged from nearest ancestors in the Pliocene Epoch (at least 2.5 MYA) mirroring the morphological evidence of Storr (1967). This paper in effect combines the results of Storr (1967) with Melville et al. (2016) with the added benefit of inspection of live specimens from the seven relevant populations and all previously named forms to formally describe and name eight new species in accordance with the rules of the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (Ride et al. 1999). The eighth named species is separated from others by a biogeographical barrier of known antiquity. Each is estimated to have diverged from their nearest common ancestor at least 2.5 million years prior and as they are ecologically and distributionally separated, are clearly separate species by any currently used definition. The first ever proper diagnosis of the expanded subgenus Tachyon Wells and Wellington, 1985 was published by Hoser in 2015. It has stood the test of time and is repeated in this paper. Keywords: Taxonomy; nomenclature; lizards; dragons; Agamidae; Ctenophorus; Tachyon; Grammatophora; Amphibolurus; Western Australia; Queensland; Northern Territory; Australia; Ring-tailed dragon; caudicinctus; caudicincta; yinnietharra; graafi; imbricatus; infans; macropus; mensarum; slateri; new species; adelynhoserae; jackyhoserae; katrinahoserae; lenhoseri; maxinehoserae; ronhoseri; sharonhoserae; shireenhoserae. Full text at http://www.smuggled.com/issue-42-pages-50-64.pdf