A new crag lizard from the Cape Folded Mountains in South Africa

Abstract A new crag lizard of the genus Pseudocordylus is described from the Western Cape Province, South Africa. It is an archaic melanistic form, occurring in sympatry with other archaic melanistic lizard and mollusc taxa within the mistbelt of the Hottentotsholland Mountains, part of the Cape Folded Mountains. With a maximum snout-vent length of less than 80 mm, it has an exceptionally small body size for a crag lizard. It has a conservative morphology which bridges the morphological gap that exists between Pseudocordylus and Cordylus. It is suspected that this species has a very restricted range in the Hottentotsholland Mountains, and that indiscriminate burning of the veld and collecting of the species may pose a serious threat to its survival.