Cnemaspis affinis ( Stoliczka, 1870 )

Grismer, Lee, Wood, Perry L., Anuar, Shahrul, Riyanto, Awal, Ahmad, Norhayati, Muin, Mohd A., Sumontha, Montri, Grismer, Jesse L., Onn, Chan Kin, Quah, Evan S. H. & Pauwels, Olivier S. A., 2014, Systematics and natural history of Southeast Asian Rock Geckos (genus Cnemaspis Strauch, 1887) with descriptions of eight new species from Malaysia, Thailand, and Indonesia, Zootaxa 3880 (1), pp. 1-147 : 66-68

Cnemaspis affinis ( Stoliczka, 1870)

Penang Island Rock Gecko

Fig. 33

Gymnodactylus affinis Boulenger 1885:42

Gonatodes penangensis Flower 1896:863

Holotype. ZSI 5964. Type locality: “ Penang Hills”, Penang Island , Penang, Peninsular Malaysia at approximately 800 m in elevation.

Diagnosis. Maximum SVL 50.8 mm; 9–13 supralabials; 8–10 infralabials; ventral scales keeled; five or six discontinuous, pore-bearing precloacal scales with round pores; 20–28 paravertebral tubercles; dorsal tubercles not linearly arranged, present on flanks; tubercles absent from lateral caudal furrows; ventrolateral caudal tubercles absent; lateral caudal row present; caudal tubercles not encircling tail; all subcaudals keeled, no enlarged median scale row; two postcloacal tubercles on each side of tail base; no enlarged femoral or subtibial scales; subtibials keeled; no submetatarsal scales on first toe; 28 or 29 subdigital fourth toe lamellae; gular region yellow in males; single ocellus in shoulder region in males, yellow post-scapular band in males; and transverse yellow bars on flanks (Tables 6,7).

Color pattern in life ( Fig. 33 ). Adult males: dorsal ground color grey to brown; paired white markings on occiput; dark pre- and postorbital stripes are present with latter extending onto nape; medial, white marking on nape followed by distinct, large, black shoulder patches in males usually enclosing a white to yellow ocellus anteriorly and edged posteriorly by yellow spot; irregularly shaped, paravertebral, white markings on dorsum extending to base of tail and confluent with transversely elongate, distinct, yellow markings on flank. Adult females: slightly less boldly marked; tend to lack postscapular band, more yellowish overall.

Distribution. Cnemaspis affinis is endemic to Penang Island, Penang, Peninsular Malaysia ( Grismer et al. 2008b; Fig. 3 ).

Natural history. Grismer et al. (2008b) indicated that Cnemaspis affinis is found only in the upland regions of Penang Island in the vicinity of 720 m where it occurs on large granite boulders in disturbed forest ( Fig. 33 ). During the day, lizards are active on the shaded surfaces of the boulders and quite wary but at night, venture farther out onto the boulder’s surface ( Flower 1896). Flower (1896) reported finding a specimen beneath the bark of a large tree. We suspect, however, this was not C. affinis but the similarly appearing C. shahruli , which is a habitat generalist and known to occur on vegetation ( Grismer et al. 2010c; Grismer 2011a). Gravid females carrying two eggs have been observed during July.

Relationships. Cnemaspis affinis is the sister species of C. harimau ( Fig. 2 ).

Material examined. Malaysia: Penang, Penang Island LSUHC 6758–59 , 6773–74 , 6787–88 , ZRC 2.1098 , 2.5203 , 2.4858 , 2.6017 – 18 , ZSI 5964 (holotype). Additional material examined since Grismer & Chan (2008): Malaysia: Penang, Penang Island LSUHC 10347 .

Figures

FIGURE 2. Maximum-likelihood phylogram (–InL 73957.608688) of the species of the genus Cnemaspis with Bayesian posterior probabilities (BPP) and maximum-likelihood (ML) bootstrap values, respectively based on the concatenated 3 gene dataset. Black circles are nodes supported by BBP and ML values greater than 0.95 and 70, respectively. Gray circles are nodes supported only by ML values greater than 70. White circles are nodes supported only by BPP values greater than 0.95. The distribution maps on the right delimit the ranges of the four major clades.

FIGURE 3. Distribution of the species and species groups in the Ca Mau and Northern Sunda clades. Stars indicate type localities.

FIGURE 33. Cnemaspis affinis from Penang Hill, Pulau Pinang, Penang, Peninsular Malaysia. Upper left: adult male (LSUDPC 9078) in the dark color pattern phase. Lower left: adult female (LSUDPC 9079) in the light color pattern phase. Upper right: microhabitat of C. affinis on Penang Hill. Lower right: ventral coloration of male (left) and female (right) C. affinis. Photographs by LLG.