Conservation of relictual species with relatively large distribution ranges is problematic. The case of R. iberica exemplifies the situation.Despite of being an old lineage, intraspecific diversification in R. iberica is very limited and recent, suggesting that almost all unitsresulting from pre-Pleistocenic diversification processes along the evolutionary history of the lineage became extinct. The shallow genetic differentiation obtained for R. iberica is corroborated by previous allozyme and microsatellite studies, which detected low geneticvariability among populations (DNEI¼0.000–0.020, Arano et al.1993; FST¼0.145–0.250, Martı´nez-Solano et al. 2005). Evidence of a recent geographic distribution contraction, based on recent fossil records (Esteban and Sanchı´z 1991), combined with a reduction in climatic suitability for amphibians and reptiles in the Iberian Peninsula (Arau´ jo et al. 2006) makes the situation complicated.Teixeira and Arntzen (2002) predicted a reduction of favorable areafor the distribution of the co-distributed and ecologically similar C. lusitanica up to 35% until the end of this century.