Scientists at the Australian Museum have confirmed a legless lizard found in the Hunter Valley represents a new species to science.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
First found in 2012 by Hunter herpetology enthusiast Ryan Harvey, the Hunter Valley Delma (Delma vescolineata) was initially considered to be a new population of the Striped Delma (Delma impar).
But Stephen Mahony, a research associate at the Australian Musuem, said upon closer inspection the legless lizard found in the Hunter Valley had some notable differences - it had barred lips and wasn't as strongly striped.
After comparing genetic samples from the Hunter Valley delma to those from the Striped Delma found in southern NSW, the ACT, Victoria and South Australia, Mr Mahony was able to conclude it was indeed a new species.
"This was a discovery where somebody's gone out to a pretty well known area (in the Hunter Valley) and found something completely new, and that's really rare these days so it's very significant" Mr Mahony said.
"This is the first legless lizard that we've found that's endemic to NSW, so that's pretty interesting for identifying some of the diversity of NSW fauna that's only found here and unique to NSW."
The scientific name of the new species means "weakly striped", a comparison to the Striped Delma found further south, and is only found in the Hunter Valley and the nearby Liverpool Plains.
Mr Mahony said part of the reason the species may have gone undiscovered for so long was down to its habitat.
"It is a pretty cryptic animal, it lives down in holes in the ground under rocks and it's not getting about where you're super likely to see it," he said.
"But you would expect that during land surveys it might have been found a bit earlier and I don't think there's a neat answer for why it wasn't."
Mr Mahony said the discovery of the Hunter Valley delma, as well as the discovery of a new species of frog in Port Stephens in 2016, showed how much potential there still was for scientists to find new species in Australia.
"It's really interesting to me that we think of the Hunter region as a well known and well surveyed area, and then in a decade's time two species, two vertebrate species, have been discovered in this region," he said.
"That's just astounding to me and it shows in more remote regions there could be so much more we haven't found."
While the Hunter Valley delma still needs to undergo a listing process to determine its conservation status, Mr Mahony said he expects it to be listed as a threatened species due to its relatively small area of distribution.
"It's only found in the Hunter region, and that distribution is heavily bisected by potential impacts like mining and housing developments in the lower Hunter where it occurs."
