A third Stenodactylus in Africa: Return of the forgotten form Stenodactylus stenurus

Just two species of genus Stenodactylus have been recently recognized in Af rica. A third taxon, S. stenurus, was mentioned only as a junior synonym of S. petrii. During a field trip to North Africa we sampled new material and hypothesized that S. stenurus is in fact a different species, easily disti nguished from both S. petrii and S. sthenodactylus. We tested our hypothesi s using two multivariate methods (principal component analysis and discrimi nant analysis) relating to several metric and scalation characters. We prov ide a redescription of S. stenurus, which is a valid species according to i ts distinct appearance, morphology, scalation, coloration, and distribution .