To be or not to be , Lacerta mostoufii Baloutch, l976 (Squamata: Lacertidae) in Iran

The enigmatic Lacerta mostoufii was described in 1976 based on a male holotype (MMTT 1582) and two juveniles (Paratypes, MMTT 1583-84); from Dasht-e Lut desert (Anderson, 1999). Shortly after, speculations began about it. First suggestion was that L. mostoufii might be described based on the blackened Darveskia chlorogaster (Eiselt, 1995). Quaintly one of paratypes (MMTT 1584) which was deposited in the Museum national d Histoire naturelle (Paris) was re-examined and regarded as a specimen belonging to L. praticola (In den Bosch, 1999). As Lacerta mostoufii was never seen again since its description, it was regarded as a nomen dubium (Ahmadzadeh et al., 2013) and subsequently retracted from the list of the Iranian lizard fauna (Šmid et al., 2014).