19. Lankascincus sameerai

Kanishka, Danushka & Amarasinghe, 2020

Publication :

Kanishka AS, AD Danushka & AAT Amarasinghe (2020). A new species of Lankascincus Greer, 1991 (Reptilia: Scincidae) with an overview of the L. gansi group. Taprobanica 9 (1): 103–119.

Remarks :

We discovered Lankascincus sameerai from Morningside, Sri Lanka. This species is restricted to the higher elevations (1,000 m a.s.l.) of the submontane forests in the Rakwana Hills (Morningside) in southwestern Sri Lanka.

Etymology:
The specific epithet is an eponym Latinized in the genitive singular, honouring Sri Lankan herpetologist Mr. Sameera Karunarathna (as D.M.S. Suranjan Karunarathna in publications) to express our sincere appreciation for his remarkable contributions to herpetology, especially the agamid and gekkonid fauna of Sri Lanka. The first two authors of this publication further express their gratitude for his generous teaching and guidance in taxonomic studies. Sameera’s remarkable contributions to biodiversity conservation in Sri Lanka, especially the enormous effort in popularizing reptile conservation among the general public, is highly commendable. The senior author of this publication celebrates his research partnership and friendship with Sameera since 2003.

English name: Sameera's Lanka-skink
Sinhala (local) name: සමීරගේ ලක්-හිකනලා