A new species of Acanthosaura Gray 1831 (Reptilia: Agamidae) from central Vietnam.

Herein, we describe the new agamid species Acanthosaura phongdienensis sp. nov. from central Vietnam based on morphological and genetic data. Males of the new medium-sized species have a snout-vent length of up to 77.4 mm and females up to 64.7 mm. In both genders, the tail is longer than the snout-vent length. A spine occurs on each side of the neck, the rostral scute is entire, and the nuchal and dorsal crests are continuous. A postorbital spine is about half as long as the diameter of the eye-ball, and small lateral scales intermix with large, keeled scales whose tips point backwards and upwards. The new species differs genetically from the closely related species A. brachypoda , A. coronata , and A. lepidogaster by uncorrected p -distances of 13.6%, 21.7%, and 12.8%, respectively. This is the 13 th species of Acanthosaura and the eighth species in the genus from Vietnam.