Data from: Testing the phylogenetic affinities of Southeast Asia’s rarest geckos: Flap-legged geckos (Luperosaurus), Flying geckos (Ptychozoon) and their relationship to the pan-Asian genus Gekko

Some of Southeast Asia’s most poorly known vertebrates include forest lizards that are rarely seen by field biologists. Arguably the most enigmatic of forest lizards from the Indo Australian archipelago are the Flap-legged Geckos and the Flying Geckos of the genera Luperosaurus and Ptychozoon. As new species have accumulated, several have been noted for their bizarre combination of morphological characteristics, seemingly intermediate between these genera and the pan-Asian gecko genus Gekko. We used the first multilocus phylogeny for these taxa and Bayesian tests of alternate topologies to evaluate their relationships, with particular attention to the phylogenetic placement of the morphologically intermediate taxa Ptychozoon rhacophorus, Luperosaurus iskandari, and L. gulat. Surprisingly, our results demonstrate that Luperosaurus is more closely related to Lepidodactylus and Pseudogekko than it is to Gekko but that some species currently classified as Luperosaurus are nested within Gekko. The Flying Gecko genus Ptychozoon is also nested within Gekko, suggesting higher-level taxonomic revision of the generic boundaries within Southeast Asian gekkonines is a priority for the immediate future.东南亚最为鲜为人知的脊椎动物类群中，包含野外生物学家罕有观测记录的森林蜥蜴。印度-澳大利亚群岛（Indo Australian archipelago）的森林蜥蜴中，最具神秘感的当属褶足壁虎（Flap-legged Geckos）与飞壁虎（Flying Geckos），它们分别隶属于褶足壁虎属（Luperosaurus）和飞壁虎属（Ptychozoon）。随着新物种陆续被发现，已有多个类群因兼具奇特的形态特征而受到关注——其形态似乎介于上述两属与泛亚洲壁虎属（Gekko）之间。本研究采用针对这些类群的首份多基因座系统发育（multilocus phylogeny）数据，结合备选拓扑结构的贝叶斯检验（Bayesian tests of alternate topologies），对其演化关系展开评估，重点关注形态中间类群棘飞壁虎（Ptychozoon rhacophorus）、伊氏褶足壁虎（Luperosaurus iskandari）以及古拉褶足壁虎（Luperosaurus gulat，缩写为L. gulat）的系统发育定位。令人意外的是，本研究结果显示：褶足壁虎属（Luperosaurus）与鳞趾虎属（Lepidodactylus）、伪壁虎属（Pseudogekko）的亲缘关系，较其与壁虎属（Gekko）的亲缘关系更近；但当前被划归褶足壁虎属的部分物种，实则嵌套于壁虎属（Gekko）内部。飞壁虎属（Ptychozoon）同样嵌套于壁虎属（Gekko）内部，这表明对东南亚壁虎亚科类群的属级分类边界开展高阶分类学修订，是近期亟待推进的核心研究任务。