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Revealing biodiversity allows the accurate determination of the underlying causes of many biological processes such as speciation and hybridization. These processes contain many complex patterns, especially in areas with high species diversity. As two of the prominent zoogeographic areas, Anatolia and Caucasus are also home to the genus Darevskia, which has a complex morphological structure and parthenogenetic speciation. Darevskia valentini and D. rudis are two largely distributed taxa of this genus, both of which have a controversial taxonomic delimitation. Here we performed both a highly detailed morphological comparison and a molecular evaluation for the populations in both species groups. The most comprehensive taxonomic revision of this complex was carried out to determine the cases where the data obtained were compatible or not with each approach. As a result of the obtained outputs, it seems that D. spitzenbergerae stat. nov., D. mirabilis stat. nov. and D. obscura stat. nov. should be accepted as the species level, this later with subspecies D. o. bischoffi comb. nov. and D. o. macromaculata comb. nov.. Also, we propose two new taxa: D. josefschmidtleri sp. nov. and D. spitzenbergerae wernermayeri ssp. nov.. It has also been shown that “lantzicyreni” subspecies belong to D. rudis instead of D. valentini. The extensive revision has contributed to subsequent studies to more accurately understand the past histories of species in the genus Darevskia.

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A broad sample of Darevskia rudis from the main part of its range was reviewed with regard to external morphology (dis-criminant, UPGMA, MST and ANOVA analyses) and osteology. Darevskia bithynica is raised to species rank, with two subspecies: D. b. bithynica and D. b. tristis. The other subspecies are fairly similar (D. r. rudis being the most different). Two singular populations are described as subspecies: D. r. mirabilis ssp. nov. from Kaçkar Mountains, geographically adjoins the otherwise different D. r. bischoffi and D. r. bolkardaghica ssp. nov., which is geographically isolated but that seems to be very closely related to D. r. obscura.

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The paper provides data on the current location of the type specimens of Darevskia (rudis) complex as of July 2017: Podarcis depressa Camerano, 1878 (syntypes – MZUT R2737.1-3, NHM 1946.9.1.31-32), Lacerta depressa var. rudis Bedriaga, 1886 (lectotype – MZUT 2737.1, paralectotypes – MZUT 2737.2-3, NHM 1946.9.1.32), Lacerta depressa var. modesta Bedriaga, 1886 (syntype – NHM 1946.9.1.31), Lacerta saxicola Subsp. bithynica Méhely, 1909 (lectotype [here designated] – ZISP 17128, paralectotype – NMW 11685), Lacerta saxicola tristis Lantz et Cyrén, 1936 (lectotype – GNM 2481, paralectotypes – GNM 2482-2485, 2487 and GNM one unnumbered specimen), Lacerta saxicola obscura Lantz et Cyrén, 1936 (lectotype [here designated] – ZISP ZISP 17171.1, paralectotypes – NHM 1966.769.773, ZISP 14435, 14436, 14437, 14438, 14439, 14440, 14442, 15402, 16290, 17057.1- 3, 17058, 17059.1-3, 17171.2-26, 17172.1-15), Lacerta rudis macromaculata Darevsky, 1967 (holotype – ZISP 17940.6, paratypes – ZISP 17440.1-18, the location of three paratypes is unknown), Lacerta rudis bischoffi Böhme et Budak, 1977 (holotype – ZDEU 183/977, paratypes – ZDEU 222/976:1, 3-6, 8-9, ZDEU 183/977.2-10, ZFMK 22062.63), Lacerta rudis svanetica Darevsky et Eiselt, 1980 (holotype – ZISP 17875.1, paratypes – ZISP 17875.2-8, 17814.1-18, NMW 24138.1-6), Lacerta rudis chechenica Eiselt et Darevsky, 1991 (holotype – NMW 33504.1, paratypes – ZISP 17878.1-13, 17882.2-4, ZISP 18374.1-5, 18781.1-6, 19545.1-13, ZFMK 16448.52, 29262, 38037.45, 40431-33, NMW 32619.1,2, 33504.2,4,5), Darevskia rudis mirabilis Arribas, Ilgaz, Kumlutaş, Durmuş, Avci et Üzüm, 2013 (holotype – ZDEU 145/2002.9, paratypes – ZDEU 145/2002.1-8, 10-18, O. Arribas private collection (1-6)), Darevskia rudis bolkardaghica Arribas, Ilgaz, Kumlutaş, Durmuş, Avci et Üzüm, 2013 (holotype – ZDEU 144/2009.6, paratypes – ZDEU 144/2009.1-5, 7-8, O. Arribas private collection (1-4)). Strictly following the ICZN the name Lacerta depressa var. rudis Bedriaga, 1886 should not be considered as the replacement name (nomen novum) for Podarcis depressa Camerano, 1878, but the only available name. The history of description of all known forms of the complex is given. Localities, collectors and dates of collection of the type specimens are clarified.

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The study of genome size variation in cells of vertebrates using the DNA flow cytometry makes it possible to precisely determine polyploid individuals, which is extremely important when studying the processes of reticulate speciation. In addition, in many groups of vertebrates, closely related species often differ in the nuclear DNA content. Therefore, the purpose of our study was to explore the variability of genome size and ploidy in populations of 29 species and subspecies of mountain lizards of the genus Darevskia, as well as their hybrids. As a result of the study, the range of variability in individuals of different ploidy (91% of diploid and 9% of triploid individuals) was established not to overlap. Among diploid species, no correlation was found between the nuclear DNA content and phylogenetic relationships, geographic coordinates, altitude, average annual temperatures and precipitation. Representatives of all studied species complexes (with the exception of D. adjarica) had approximately the same limits of variability. Two species (D. derjugini and D. saxicola) show significant intraspecific variability. Comparisons of the genome size of parthenogenetic and bisexual species generally revealed no noticeable differences between them. Studies of triploid hybrids have shown that their genome size as a whole roughly corresponds to the sum of the average size of the diploid genome of the maternal parthenogenetic species and the haploid genome of the paternal species. The variability of genome sizes within samples of triploid hybrids was on average slightly higher than in most parthenogenetic species, but some lower than in bisexual species. The paper discusses peculiarities of reticulate speciation in this group of animals.

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The results of five expeditions (1995, 1996, 2007, 2011, and 2012) to the north-eastern and eastern Turkey are presented. These data were collected from the Pontic (Lazistan) Ridge, Choroch River basin, and the upper flow basins of the Aras River, Kura River, Euphrates River, Tiger River, Dogankent (Kharshit) River, and the Van Lake basin. In total, 2 Caudata, 6 Anura, 2 Testudines (3 subspecies), 25 Sauria (30 subspecies) and 21 Serpentes species were found.