Cnemaspis yercaudensis Das & Bauer 2000
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publication ID |
https://doi.org/ 10.11646/zootaxa.4609.1.3 |
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publication LSID |
lsid:zoobank.org:pub:FF36B5CC-0ECE-4F16-9002-CA04F9352A05 |
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persistent identifier |
https://treatment.plazi.org/id/270A8969-2C48-FFEC-FF65-FEACFAECEE97 |
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treatment provided by |
Plazi |
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scientific name |
Cnemaspis yercaudensis Das & Bauer 2000 |
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Cnemaspis yercaudensis Das & Bauer 2000
Yercaud Day Gecko
Figs. 6 A, B View FIGURE 6 ; Table 3 View TABLE 3 .
Cnemaspis yercaudensis Das & Bauer, 2000: 7 (1), 17–28
Holotype. AMB 5748 View Materials , sub-adult male, from Yercaud Town in the Shevaroys (11°.48’ N 78°.14’ E; ca. 1515 m asl.), Salem District, Tamil Nadu, south-western India, collected by Aaron M. Bauer and Indraneil Das, 13 January 1998.
Additional material. NCBS-BH678 , adult male, NCBS-BH677 , sub-adult female, from near Grange resort, Yercaud town , in the Shevaroys (11.775° N 78.219° E; ca. 1388 m asl.), Salem district, Tamil Nadu state, India, collected by A. Khandekar, I. Agarwal and N. Gaitonde on 12 September 2018 GoogleMaps . NCBS-BH679 , BNHS 2533 View Materials , adult males, NCBS-BH680 , BNHS 2532 View Materials , BNHS 2534 View Materials , adult females, from near Nallathambi resort, Kollimalai, (11.286° N, 78.337° E; ca. 1146 m asl.), Namakkal district, Tamil Nadu state, India, collected by A. Khandekar, I. Agarwal and N. Gaitonde on 16 September 2018 GoogleMaps .
Diagnosis and comparison with Indian congeners: A small-sized Cnemaspis , snout to vent length less than 30 mm. Dorsal pholidosis heterogeneous; weakly keeled, granular scales in the vertebral and paravertebral region with a few scattered enlarged keeled tubercles, intermixed with about three rows of large, strongly keeled, conical scales on the flanks, five or six rows of dorsal scales, spine-like scales absent on flank. Ventral scales smooth, subimbricate, 18–20 scales across belly, 90–105 longitudinal scales from mental to cloaca. Subdigital scansors smooth, entire, unnotched; lamellae under digit IV of pes 15–19. Males with three femoral pores on each thigh, separated on either side by five or six poreless scales from two continuous precloacal pores. Tail with enlarged, strongly keeled, conical scales forming whorls; a median row of sub-caudals smooth, slightly enlarged. Dorsum grayish-brown with light vertebral stripe from occiput to tail base, throat yellow, unpatterned; original tail bluishgray in males, regenerated tail light brown.
Cnemaspis yercaudensis can be distinguished from all other Indian congeners on the basis of the following differing or non-overlapping characters: spine-like scales absent on flanks (versus spine-like scales present on flanks in C. amboliensis , C. assamensis Das & Sengupta , C. flaviventralis , C. goaensis , C. jerdonii (Theobald) , C. littoralis (Jerdon) , C. monticola Manamendra-Arachchi, Batuwita & Pethiyagoda and C. nilagirica Manamendra- Arachchi, Batuwita & Pethiyagoda); scales on dorsal aspect of trunk heterogeneous (versus scales on dorsal aspect of trunk homogeneous in C. adii , C. assamensis , C. australis Manamendra-Arachchi, Batuwita & Pethiyagoda , C. boiei (Gray) , C. indica (Gray) , C. jerdonii , C. kolhapurensis , C. littoralis , C. nilagirica and C. sisparensis (Theobald) ); tail with median row of sub-caudal scales smooth and slightly enlarged (versus median row of subcaudal scales smooth and not enlarged in C. ajijae , C. flaviventralis , C. girii , C. limayei ; C. monticola , C. australis with keeled sub-caudals); absence of keeled scales on the venter or gular regions (versus keeled scales on the venter or gular region in C. beddomei (Theobald) and C. goaensis ); males with three femoral pores on each thigh, separated on either side by five or six poreless scales from two continuous precloacal pores (versus precloacal pores absent, femoral pores present in C. ajijae , C. anaikattiensis , C. flaviventralis , C. girii , C. indica , C. jerdonii , C. kottiyoorensis Cyriac & Umesh , C. limayei , C. littoralis , C. mahabali , C. sisparensis , C. heteropholis , C. wynadensis (Beddome) ; only precloacal pores present in C. anamudiensis Cyriac, Johny, Umesh , & Palot, C. beddomei , C. maculicollis Cyriac, Johny, Umesh , & Palot, C. nairi Inger, Marx & Koshy , C. ornata (Beddome) ; both femoral and precloacal pores absent in C. boiei , C. assamensis ; three femoral and four precloacal pores present in C. otai ; two femoral and two precloacal pores present in C. adii ; 4–6 femoral and two precloacal pores on each side separated by a single poreless scales in C. agarwali ; four or five femoral and three precloacal pores in C. australis ; 2–4 femoral and three precloacal pores in C. goaensis ; 3–5 femoral pores and two precloacal pores separated by two or three poreless scales C. mysoriensis ; a continuous series of 26–28 precloacal-femoral pores in C. kolhapurensis ). Cnemaspis yercaudensis is 19.9–21.9% divergent in ND2 sequences from all sampled congeners ( Table 2 View TABLE 2 ). Diagnoses against the new species are provided after their descriptions.
Variation and additional information from additional material examined. Mensural data for the type series is given in Table 3 View TABLE 3 . There are four male and three female specimens ranging in SVL from 23.1 mm to 30.0 mm. All paratypes resemble the holotype except as follows: the number of lamellae on digit I of the manus ranges from seven or eight and on digit IV from 12–14; on digit IV of the pes from 15–19 and on digit V from 14–16; the number of supralabials ranges from seven to eight to the angle of jaw; infralabials between six and seven; five or six dorsal tubercle rows. Ventral scale counts in longitudinal and transverse series vary from 90–105 and 18–20, respectively; males have five or six poreless scales between precloacal and femoral pores. The complete tail is slightly shorter than body (TL/SVL ratio 0.87–1.00). The three males in our collection match the three female specimens in overall colouration, except the tail is bluish-grey in males and brown in females.
Distribution and Natural history. Cnemaspis yercaudensis is so far known from around the type locality, Yercaud town, in the Shevaroy massif, Salem district across an elevation range of 1350–1500 m asl. and in Kolli Hills between 1140–1350 m asl. At Yercaud, we collected individuals of C. yercaudensis after dusk (~ 1830h) on roadside walls and observed a single individual during an overcast day on a low wall. At Kolli Hills, we collected a total of five individuals of C. yercaudensis , out of which four were found at night along roadside walls approximately at a height of 1m above ground, and a single inactive individual under a rock during the daytime. Sympatric lizards at localities in Yercaud where we observed the species include Hemidactylus frenatus Duméril & Bibron , Hemidactylus parvimaculatus Deraniyagala , Hemiphyllodactylus aurantiacus (Beddome) , Cnemaspis thackerayi sp. nov., Eutropis carinata (Schneider) , Eutropis macularia (Blyth) , Lygosoma albopunctata (Gray) , and Calotes versicolor (Daudin) . Sympatric lizards in Kollimalai include Hemidactylus frenatus , Hemidactylus parvimaculatus , Hemiphyllodactylus kolliensis Agarwal, Khandekar, Giri, Ramakrishnan & Karanth Cnemaspis sp., Eutropis carinata , Eutropis macularia , Eutropis sp., Lygosoma albopunctata and Calotes versicolor .
TABLE 3. Measurements (mm) and meristic data for the type series of Cnemaspis yercaudensis Abbreviations are listed in Materials and Methods. * = tail/ digit incomplete or missing, /= data not available.
| Specimen No. | NCBS-BH677 | NCBS-BH678 | NCBS-BH679 | NCBS-BH680 | BNHS 2532 | BNHS 2533 | BNHS 2534 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sex | F | M | M | F | F | M | F |
| SVL | 23.1 | 27.7 | 28.4 | 30 | 29 | 28.7 | 29.8 |
| TL | 20.6 | 24.2 | 3.6* | 10.4* | 3.8* | 3.5* | 30 |
| TW | 2.4 | 2.8 | 3 | 2.7 | 3 | 3 | 3 |
| LAL | 3.1 | 3.5 | 3.8 | 4 | 3.5 | 3.7 | 4 |
| CL | 3.8 | 4.8 | 4.6 | 4.6 | 4.4 | 4.5 | 4.7 |
| AGL | 9.5 | 10.7 | 11.4 | 13.5 | 12.3 | 11.8 | 13.5 |
| BH | 1.8 | 2.1 | 3.1 | 4.1 | 3 | 3 | 3.8 |
| BW | 3.6 | 5.5 | 5.7 | 7.3 | 6.4 | 5.8 | 7.1 |
| HL | 6 | 6.9 | 6.6 | 6.9 | 6.7 | 6.8 | 7 |
| HW | 4.4 | 5.2 | 5.1 | 4.9 | 5.1 | 5 | 5 |
| HD | 2.3 | 2.8 | 2.9 | 3 | 3 | 2.9 | 3.1 |
| ED | 1.2 | 1.4 | 1.4 | 1.3 | 1.3 | 1.4 | 1.3 |
| EE | 1.9 | 2.5 | 2.4 | 2.5 | 2.6 | 2.5 | 2.7 |
| ES | 2.8 | 3.5 | 3.2 | 3.4 | 3.2 | 3.4 | 3.5 |
| EN | 2.1 | 2.7 | 2.6 | 2.7 | 2.8 | 2.7 | 2.9 |
| IN | 0.7 | 0.9 | 0.8 | 0.8 | 0.8 | 0.7 | 0.8 |
| IO | 1.7 | 2 | 2.2 | 2.3 | 2.2 | 2.3 | 2.3 |
| EL | 0.3 | 0.3 | 0.5 | 0.4 | 0.4 | 0.5 | 0.3 |
| SL L/R | 8/8 | 8/8 | 7/7 | 7/7 | 7/7 | 7/7 | 7/8 |
| IL L/R | 7/7 | 7/7 | 7/7 | 7/7 | 7/6 | 7/7 | 7/6 |
| SL M L/R | 7/6 | 7/6 | 6/6 | 6/6 | 6/6 | 6/6 | 6/6 |
| IL M L/R | 6/5 | 6/5 | 5/5 | 5/5 | 5/5 | 5/5 | 5/5 |
| PVT | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| RBS | 6 | 6 | 6 | 6 | 5 | 6 | 6 |
| RVS | 18 | 18 | 20 | 18 | 19 | 18 | 18 |
| VS | 105 | 102 | 90 | 95 | 97 | 93 | 95 |
| LamF1 L/R | 8/8 | 7/7 | 8/8 | 8/8 | 8/8 | 8/8 | 8/8 |
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