The understanding of the diversity of species in the Palearctic and the processes that have generated it is still weak for large parts of the arid areas of North Africa and Arabia. Reptiles are among their most remarkable representatives, with numerous groups well adapted to the diverse environments. The Ptyodactylus geckos are a strictly rock-dwelling genus with homogeneous morphology distributed across mountain formations and rocky plateaus from the western African ranges in Mauritania and the Maghreb to the eastern tip of the Arabian Peninsula, with an isolated species in southern Pakistan. Here, we use a broad sampling of 378 specimens, two mitochondrial (12S and cytb) and four nuclear (c-mos, MC1R, ACM4, RAG2) markers in order to obtain the first time-calibrated molecular phylogeny of the genus and place its diversification in a temporal framework. The results reveal high levels of intraspecific variability, indicative of undescribed diversity, and they do not support the monophyly of one species (P. ragazzii). Ptyodactylus species are allopatric across most of their range, which may relate to their high preference for the same type of structural habitat. The onset of their diversification is estimated to have occurred in the Late Oligocene, while that of several deep clades in the phylogeny took place during the Late Miocene, a period when an increase in aridification in North Africa and Arabia initiated.

Biology Department Faculty of Science Taif University 888 Taif Saudi Arabia

CEFE UMR 5175 CNRS Université de Montpellier Université Paul Valéry Montpellier EPHE 1919 route de Mende 34293 Montpellier cedex 5 France

CIBIO Centro de Investigação em Biodiversidade e Recursos Genéticos da Universidade do Porto Instituto de Ciências Agrárias de Vairão R Padre Armando Quintas 4485 661 Vairão Portugal

Faculty of Science Charles University Prague Department of Ecology Viničná 7 CZ 122 44 Prague Czech Republic

Institute of Evolutionary Biology Passeig Marítim de la Barceloneta 37 49 08003 Barcelona Spain

Zoologischer Garten Frankfurt Bernhard Grzimek Allee 1D 60316 Frankfurt am Main Germany

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