Cnemaspis tucdupensis Grismer & Ngo, 2007

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 : 48-49

Cnemaspis tucdupensis Grismer & Ngo, 2007

Tuc Dup Hill Rock Gecko

Fig. 21

Holotype. UNS 45 . Type locality: “ Tuc Dup Hill , Tri Ton District, An Giang Province, Vietnam (10°22.9549 N, 104°57.3369 E) at 100 m in elevation.

Diagnosis. Maximum SVL 51.0 mm; 8–10 supralabials; 7–9 infralabials; smooth ventral scales; no precloacal pores; 16–22 paravertebral tubercles; tubercles linearly arranged or nearly so, present on flanks; caudal tubercles not restricted to a single paravertebral row nor encircling tail; tubercles not in lateral caudal furrows; ventrolateral caudal tubercles present anteriorly; no lateral caudal tubercle row; subcaudals smooth, bearing a median row of slightly enlarged scales; 0–3 postcloacal tubercles on each side; no enlarged femoral or subtibial scales; subtibials smooth; enlarged submetatarsal scales on first toe; 26–32 subdigital fourth toe lamellae; large, black, squarish, paired paravertebral markings on body; black and yellow bands on tail; posterior portion of original tail in males black; dark mid-gular marking; gular region, throat, pectoral region, abdomen, ventral surfaces of limbs and subcaudal region in males orangish (Tables 6,7).

Color pattern ( Fig. 21 ). Dorsal ground color gray, body overlain with large, black and pale yellow spots; limbs bearing reddish brown and pale yellow alternating bands; poorly defined, black and yellow caudal bands encircling tail; posterior portion of original tail black; regenerated tail beige, immaculate; top of head and snout with faint, dark reticulum enclosing dull whitish blotches; thin, dark, postorbital stripes edged below in white, uppermost extending onto nape; dark mid-gular marking; gular region, throat, pectoral region, abdomen, ventral surfaces of limbs and subcaudal region in males orangish.

Distribution. Cnemaspis tucdupensis is known only from the type locality of Tuc Dup Hill located 36.3 km south of Chau Doc in Tinh Bien District of An Giang Province, Vietnam near the border of Cambodia ( Fig. 3 ).

Natural history. Tuc Dup Hill is a prominence of Co To Mountain that lies at the southern end of the Bay Nui Mountains in Tri Ton District of An Giang Province in southern Vietnam. Co To Mountain reaches 584 m in elevation and is covered with primary semi-deciduous forest where numerous granitic outcroppings and caves are common ( Fig. 21 ). At Tuc Dup, the boulders are particularly large (up to 5 m in diameter) and enclose a myriad of spaces and chambers where they lie on top of one another. The type locality served as a Viet Cong headquarters during the Vietnam War and currently serves as a museum celebrating Tuc Dup Hill as a strategic military hideout. Cnemaspis tucdupensis is most prevalent in caverns near areas wherein sunlight can filter down during the day supporting plant growth and mosses on the boulders and serving as areas where lizards can forage ( Grismer & Ngo 2007). Lizards avoid direct sunlight and remain on the shaded vertical and inverted rocky surfaces nearby. At night, lizards venture out into open areas within the cavern as well as onto boulder surfaces exposed to the outside and appear inactive. Lizards present weak tail displays immediately before and after escaping.

Relationships. Cnemaspis tucdupensis is the sister species of C. nuicamensis ( Fig. 2 ).

Material examined. Vietnam: An Giang Province, Tri Ton District, Tuc Dup Hill UNS 42–43 , 45 (type series) . Material examined since Grismer & Ngo (2007) : Vietnam; An Giang Province, Tri Ton District, Tuc Dup Hill LSUHC 8245 , 8609–22 , 9527–41 . Grismer & Ngo (2007) mistakenly listed the holotype as UNS 49 when it should have been UNS 45 .

Siamensis group. The siamensis group is a well-supported lineage that contains parapatric sister lineages on opposite sides of the Isthmus of Kra in the central portion of the Thai-Malay Peninsula (Figs. 2,3). This group may be the sister lineage to the chanthaburiensis group although this relationship lacks strong statistical support ( Fig. 2 ). The northern lineage contains C. siamensis (Smith) that extends throughout northern Peninsular Thailand (and probably Myanmar) and its sister species C. huaseesom Grismer, Sumontha, Cota, Grismer, Wood, Pauwels & Kunya known only from western Thailand just north of the Thai-Malay Peninsula ( Grismer et al. 2010a). The southern lineage contains C. chanardi Grismer, Sumontha, Cota, Grismer, Wood, Pauwels & Kunya in the north and the sister species C. omari sp. nov. from southern Thailand and northern Peninsular Malaysia and C. roticanai Grismer & Chan from Langkawi Island in extreme northwestern Malaysia ( Fig. 3 ). These three species form a well-supported monophyletic group in the molecular analysis that is further supported here by them having the derived character states of a light-colored prescapular crescent, a yellow belly, and yellow ventral surfaces of the hind limbs. Some individuals of C. biocellata from the Pattani clade have a yellow belly, which we consider convergent.

The siamensis group is diagnosed by having a maximum SVL of 37.8–47.0 mm; 7–10 supralabials; 6–9 infralabials; 0–8 pore-bearing, precloacal scales; linearly arranged dorsal tubercles; 18–30 paravertebral tubercles; caudal tubercles not restricted to a single paravertebral row and encircling tail; no ventrolateral caudal tubercles anteriorly; one or two postcloacal tubercles on each side; no enlarged femoral, subtibial or scales beneath first metatarsal; 21–31 lamellae beneath the fourth toe.

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 21. Cnemaspis tucdupensis from Tuc Dup Hill, An Giang Province, Vietnam. Upper left: adult female (LSUDPC 3140) in the light color pattern phase. Upper right: adult male (LSUDCP 3141) in the dark color pattern phase. Lower: granite boulder microhabitat at Tuc Dup Hill. Photographs by LLG.