Giri's Geckoella

Cyrtodactylus varadgirii

Description:

Join me in welcoming the newest species in Indian Herpetology - Giri's Geckoella | Cyrtodactylus varadgirii. It is named after a herpetologist Varad Giri :) This species is described by Ishan Agarwal, Zeeshan A. Mirza, Saunak P. Pal, Simon Maddock, Anurag Mishra and Aaron Bauer. The paper can be downloaded from the following link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/ys5gbmhwhs56mp...

Habitat:

Evergreen forest

Notes:

Honestly speaking when I had photographed this way back in 2012 in Chikli (Navsari District - Gujarat) I had disposed it off as Geckoella collegalensis. One more reason to say in Herpetology always take a closer look, it may not be what it looks like!

Species ID Suggestions

9 Comments

Vipul Ramanuj 7 years ago

Thank you all for making this the spotting of the day.. It made my day ! :)

armadeus.4 7 years ago

Congratulations Vipul!!! Thank you for sharing this new species of Geckoella :)

DanielePralong 7 years ago

Congratulations Vipul! This very special gecko is our Spotting of the Day!

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DanielePralong 7 years ago

Thanks you Vipu! This is much appreciated.l

Vipul Ramanuj 7 years ago

Hi Daniele, thanks for the appreciation, this one really is special!

There are quite a few noticeable key features that help separate this specimen with the other closely related C. collegalensis, C. speciosus and C. yakhuna. The type locality is same as that of the other species collected to describe the new species. Apart from the small body size (snout to vent length to 56 mm), here are a few others:
- absence of precloacal and femoral pores, no enlarged preanal or femoral scales
- dorsal scalation consisting wholly of small, granular scales.
- presence of a patch of enlarged roughly hexagonal scales on the canthus rostralis and beneath the angle of jaw

Ref: Agarwal et. al - A new species of the Cyrtodactylus (Geckoella) collegalensis (Beddome, 1870) complex (Squamata: Gekkonidae) from Western India

Felix Fleck 7 years ago

Most welcome he is! Great spotting.

DanielePralong 7 years ago

Vipul, I had a look at the paper: thanks for the link! Could you tell us which of the criteria described you used to differentiate it from the other species described there? Do you have other pictures as well? Thanks in advance!