Isolation and characterization of 12 microsatellite loci in the Chinese crocodile lizard (Shinisaurus crocodilurus)

The Chinese crocodile lizard (Shinisaurus crocodilurus) is listed as one of the most endangered species in the world. There are only nine isolated populations of crocodile lizards distributed in China and one population distributed in Vietnam. 12 polymorphic microsatellite loci were isolated and characterized from a DNA library. To characterize each loci, 40 crocodile lizards individual from Guangdong province, China were genotyped. These loci showed allele numbers ranging from 11 to 20. The ranges of observed and expected heterozygosity were 0.8500–0.9750 and 0.8372–0.9347, respectively. All loci followed Hardy–Weinberg equilibrium (HWE) after Bonferroni correction. No evidence of significant linkage disequilibrium was found among any loci. Thus, we expect these markers will be useful for conservation genetic study of the Chinese crocodile lizard.