On the historical biogeography of the subfamily Uromastycinae: how did Saara achieve its eastern range

Here we challenge the origin center of the subfamily Uromastycinae, i.e. eastern or southern Asia, and east to west dispersal toward the Middle East and Africa and suggest that Afro-Arabia is a more probable candidate as the center. The uromastycine clade diverged in Afro-Arabia during the Oligocene forming the Uromastyx and Saara roots; the Saara root diverged into a northern clade and an eastern clade during middle Miocene. The northern clade either dispersed towards the Gomphotherium landbridge; the populations that did not cross the landbridge evolved into S. loricata, and the passed ones dispersed eastwards and evolved into S. asmussi; or it extended towards central Iran during the intermittent Tethys seaway connections and/or permanent Tethys seaway closure, and the vicariant Zagros orogeny caused the evolution of S. loricata in the western Zagros and S. asmussi in the eastern Zagros and central Iran. The eastern clade, S. hardwickii, followed a path that formed through the contact of the Indian and Arabian Peninsula continental shelves, amplified by the sea level regression during the middle Miocene glaciation.