9. Sitana devakai

Amarasinghe, Ineich & Karunarathna, 2015

Publication :

Amarasinghe AAT, I Ineich, DMSS Karunarathna, WMS Botejue & PD Campbell (2015). Two new species of the genus Sitana Cuvier, 1829 (Reptilia: Agamidae) from Sri Lanka, including a taxonomic revision of the Indian Sitana species. Zootaxa 3915 (1): 67–98.

Remarks :

We discovered Sitana devakai from drier coastal areas in the north and north western parts of Sri Lanka, sometimes recorded at a distance of ~10–60 km from the nearest beach (e.g. Anuradhapura, Vavuniya and Kilinochchi). The populations near to Puttalam probably sympatric with Sitana ponticeriana and Sitana Sitana visiri.

Etymology:
The species epithet is an eponym Latinised in the genitive singular, honouring Prof. Devaka Keerthi Weerakoon, for his remarkable contributions to biodiversity conservation in Sri Lanka. He worked as the Technical Advisor of the 2007 and 2012 Red Lists of Threatened Fauna and Flora in Sri Lanka and was responsible for their publication. As a consultant to the Department of Wildlife Conservation, he has provided technical support for the preparation and implementation of protected areas, produced management plans, managed alien invasive species programs in protected areas, mapped habitats, carried out protected area gap analyses programs and conducted bird surveys. His contributions to the ecology of Asian elephants and reduction of human-elephant conflicts are remarkable.

English name: Devaka’s Fanthroated Lizard
Sinhala (local) name: දේවකගේ වැලි-කටුස්සා