  We extend dilaton chiral perturbation theory (dChPT) to include the taste
splittings in the Nambu--Goldstone sector observed in lattice simulations of
near-conformal theories with staggered fermions. We then apply dChPT to a
recent simulation by the LSD collaboration of the SU(3) gauge theory with 8
fermions in the fundamental representation, which is believed to exhibit
near-conformal behavior in the infrared, and in which a light singlet scalar
state, nearly degenerate with the pions, has been found. We find that the
mesonic sector of this theory can be successfully described by dChPT,
including, in particular, the mesonic taste splittings found in the simulation.
We confirm that current simulations of this theory are in the "large-mass"
regime.
