Record of the Indo-Pacific Slender Gecko Hemiphyllodactylus typus(Squamata: Sauria: Gekkonidae) from the Andaman Islands, India
S.R. Chandramouli 1, S. Harikrishnan 2& Karthikeyan Vasudevan 3
1,2,3Wildlife Institute of India, P.O. Box
# 18, Chandrabani, Dehradun, Uttarakhand 248001, India
Email: 1 findthesnakeman@gmail.com, 2s.harikrishnan09@gmail.com, 3 karthik@wii.gov.in
(corresponding author),
Date of publication (online): 26 April 2012
Date of publication (print): 26 April 2012
ISSN 0974-7907 (online) | 0974-7893 (print)
Editor: C. Srinivasulu
Manuscript details:
Ms # o2856
Received 30 June 2011
Final received 23 September 2011
Finally accepted 08 March 2012
Citation: Chandramouli, S.R., S.
Harikrishnan & K. Vasudevan (2012). Record of the Indo-Pacific Slender
Gecko Hemiphyllodactylus typus(Squamata: Sauria: Gekkonidae) from the Andaman Islands, India. Journal of Threatened Taxa4(4): 2536–2538.
Copyright: © S.R. Chandramouli, S.
Harikrishnan & Karthikeyan Vasudevan 2012. Creative Commons Attribution 3.0
Unported License. JoTT allows unrestricted use of this article in any medium
for non-profit purposes, reproduction and distribution by providing adequate
credit to the authors and the source of publication.
Acknowledgement:We would like to thank
the Department of Forests and Wildlife, Andaman and Nicobar Islands for
permission to conduct herpetofaunal surveys in these Islands. We especially
thank the Divisional Forest Officer, Middle Andaman and the Range Forest
Officer, Long Island, for their support. We thank India’s Department of Science
and Technology Science and Engineering Council Projects Appraisal Committee on
Life Sciences, for providing funds for this study.
For
image, table -- click here
The Andaman and Nicobar Islands are situated in the Bay of
Bengal. The Andaman Islands and
the Nicobar Islands are separated by a deep channel called the Ten Degree
Channel that also divides them into two distinct zoogeographical zones (Rodgers
& Panwar 1998). Herpetofaunal
affinities of the two island groups have been discussed and in general, it is
concluded that the Andamans are more allied to the Indo-Chinese region, while
the Nicobars show a greater affinity to the Sundas (Das 1999). The family Gekkonidae is represented in
the Andaman and Nicobar archipelago by eight and nine species respectively, with
three and two species being endemic to each of the two island groups
respectively (Das & Vijayakumar 2009; Harikrishnan et al. 2010). Herewith, we report and confirm the
occurrence of Indo-Pacific Slender Gecko Hemiphyllodactylus typus in the
Andaman Islands based on freshly collected specimen during recent herpetofaunal
surveys conducted as a part of an ongoing study.
Hemiphyllodactylus typus Bleeker, 1860
Two specimens each from two localities, namely Long Island (12.370N
& 92.920E; 35m) in the Middle Andaman and Mt. Harriet National
Park (c.a. 11.420N & 92.430E; 300m) in the South
Andaman, were collected. The
specimens HC003 (ZSI 6485-3) and HC058 (ZSI 6485-1) from Long
Island (Image 1) were found inside an old building adjacent to a forest. One of the Mt. Harriet specimens HC059
(ZSI 6485-2) was found inside the forest guest house while the other HC060
(ZSI 6485-4) was found outside a cottage. This area is surrounded by primary evergreen forests. We assign these geckos to the nominate
species based on the following characters: body depressed, slender and
elongate; the first digit in fingers and toes rudimentary and lacking claws, no
distinct post-mentals, mental triangular, almost as broad as deep, dorsum
smooth, lacking tuberculation, ventral scales smooth and imbricate. Body pale brown, with dark brown irregular streaks on the trunk and
paravertebral bright orange spots, tail bright orange coloured ventrally. One of our samples (SVL 39.65mm) HC058
(ZSI 6485-1) was a gravid female and laid two eggs, which measured
7.29×6.02 mm and 7.3×5.81 mm. Another specimen HC059 (ZSI6458-2) measuring 35.9mm SVL had
11 enlarged pre-anal scales with pores arranged in an angular series, and three
femoral pores on each thigh that are separated from the pre-anal series. There were two rounded cloacal spurs on
each side. The summary of
characters and measurements of the four specimens are given in Table 1. The specimens are presently housed at
the collections of Wildlife Institute of India, to be deposited at National
Zoological; Collection at Zoological Survey of India, Port Blair. HC003 (ZSI
6485-3), HC058 (ZSI 6485-1), HC059 (ZSI6458-2)and HC060 (ZSI 6485-4) are the WII field tag numbers which will be
retained even upon deposition at ZSI.
Systematics of Hemiphyllodactylus typus was
elaborately discussed by Bauer & Das (1999), who concluded that H. typus is a
distinct species composed of a parthenogenetic population. They considered that H. aurantiacusdeserved specific distinction from H.
typus based on the reduced number of subdigital lamellae under
the 4th toe, reduced number of presacral vertebrae and
distinguishable bisexuality in the former species. Also, they remarked that the Sundan population of H. typus was not
adequately sampled to be considered unisexual. Literature based on field surveys conducted in the Andaman
and Nicobar archipelago have not reported this species from any other island
except Great Nicobar, which is the southernmost island of the archipelago
(Biswas & Sanyal 1980; Das 1999; Vijayakumar 2005). Further, Das (2002) reported it to be
recorded from “the Andaman Islands of India, besides Sri Lanka, Thailand, the
Malay peninsula, Borneo….” excluding the Nicobars. This was also reiterated by Javed et al. (2010). Somaweera & Somaweera (2009)
reported its range from “Bali, Borneo……India….. Nicobar Islands….”, but did not
include the Andaman Islands. Zug
(2010) in his extensive review of Hemiphyllodactylusredefined H. typus,
and did not include the Andaman and Nicobar Islands in the geographic range of
the species. Elsewhere, in the
same publication, he lists Great Nicobar Island as a locality record based on
the report of Biswas & Sanyal (1980). Considering this, our observations and samples from two different
localities in the Andamans support the earlier report of this species from this
region by Das (2002). Since all
the specimens were found in or close to buildings, the possibility of human
introduction into the islands as speculated by Das (1999) cannot be ruled out.
In our ongoing surveys we are yet to record this species in primary undisturbed
forest.
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