Hemidactylus robustus, Heyden, 1827

Carranza, Salvador & Arnold, Edwin Nicholas, 2012, 3378, Zootaxa 3378, pp. 1-95 : 68-70

Hemidactylus robustus

( Figs. 4, 5, 32, Table 1; Appendix I; Appendix III)

The distribution of H. robustus is difficult to predict with certainty due to the confusion with H. turcicus and other similar taxa ( Sindaco & Jeremcenko 2008; Bauer et al. in press). In Arabia it is widely distributed, with populations on the Western coast starting from at least 22º N Southwards to the Aden region. It is also present in Socotra Island, the Hadramaut and occurs in Oman in coastal Dhofar, on Masirah Island and the neighboring mainland, around the Sharqiya Sands (formerly Wahiba Sands) and Northwards to the Eastern United Arab Emirates. Hemidactylus robustus also occurs in costal Iran, Pakistan, in Gurajat ( India), along the African Red Sea coast of Southern Egypt and Sudan, in Eritrea, East Ethiopia, Djibuti, Somalia and extreme Northeast Kenya.

Available material from widely separated localities ( Fig. 4) in the United Arab Emirates, Al Azaiba in North Oman, 8 km W of Shannah (opposite Masirah), Dhofar (South Oman) and Yemen form a clade ( Fig. 5) and are all genetically very similar, showing a low divergence from a specimen from Safaga, Egypt. In contrast, animals from Masirah Island and one from Shannah, on the nearby mainland, form a separate clade that differs by 8.7% in the cytb and 3.6% in the 12S. According to the results of the dating analysis inferred with Dataset 2, the two clades of H. robustus split approximately 3.0 mya (95% HPD: 1.8–4.6).

Such divergence and restricted known coexistence at Shannah suggests that the two clades may represent separate species but, as yet, they are not associated with known morphological differences. The presence of two distinct mtDNA clades in Arabia suggests that H. robustus originated there. The genetic uniformity of the geographically widespread clade of H. robustus may indicate that it has spread over its very large range only quite recently. The frequent occurrence of this form in anthropogenic situations suggests that such dispersal may have been by inadvertent transport with people.