Lygodactylus madagascariensis ( Boettger, 1881 )

Vences, Miguel, Multzsch, Malte, Gippner, Sven, Miralles, Aurélien, Crottini, Angelica, Gehring, Philip-Sebastian, Rakotoarison, Andolalao, Ratsoavina, Fanomezana M., Glaw, Frank & Scherz, Mark D., 2022, Integrative revision of the Lygodactylus madagascariensis group reveals an unexpected diversity of little brown geckos in Madagascar’s rainforest, Zootaxa 5179 (1), pp. 1-61 : 18-19

Lygodactylus madagascariensis ( Boettger, 1881)

Scalabotes madagascariensis Boettger, 1881

Chresonyms:

Lygodactylus madagascariensis: Boulenger (1885) , Puente et al. (2005)

Lygodactylus madagascariensis (partim; including petteri as subspecies): Kluge (1991); Glaw & Vences (1992, 1994, 2007); Puente et al. (2009); Röll et al. (2010); Gippner et al. (2021);

Lygodactylus (Domerguella) madagascariensis: Pasteur (1965a)

Lygodactylus (Domerguella) madagascariensis (partim; including petteri as subspecies): Pasteur & Blanc (1967)

Lygodactylus (Domerguella) madagascariensis madagascariensis: Rösler (2000b)

Name-bearing type: male lectotype SMF 8937 (designated by Mertens 1967), collected by A. Stumpff. Krüger (2001) considered SMF 8937 as holotype.—Type locality: Nosy Be; “hab. in insula Nossi-Bé rarus”, according to the original description.—Other types: One paralectotype (the description was based on two specimens “(2 spec.)” according to the original description).—Etymology: name derived from its general provenance, Madagascar.

Identity and Diagnosis. The lectotype of Lygodactylus madagascariensis was collected on the offshore island of Nosy Be. It is an adult male characterized by the absence of character states diagnostic for other species: it has no enlarged dorsolateral tubercles (as L. expectatus ), no regular crossbands on the tail and not particularly long hindlimbs (as L. rarus ), and no enlarged tubercles at the base of the tail.

According to our molecular data, only one genetic lineage of Domerguella has been found on Nosy Be (two sequences available). This same lineage also occurs in several forests of relatively low elevation in the Sambirano region (to which Nosy Be also belongs): Tsaratanana (Andampy), Manongarivo, Maromiandra. These localities also host many other species of amphibians and reptiles occurring on Nosy Be (e.g. Penny et al. 2017), supporting the biogeographic assignment of the name L. madagascariensis to this lineage.

The available material of this lineage also agrees in all studied morphological characters with the holotype, for instance in the number of longitudinal ventral scales (106 in the holotype vs. 106–138 in the other specimens) and dorsal scales (246 vs. 205–258). The species is comparatively small ( SVL 28.5 –34.0 mm) and in many specimens shows a rather typical color pattern of irregular beige patches arranged in longitudinal rows on the brown dorsum, along with irregular dark brown pattern ( Fig. 11 ) .

A genetically slightly divergent variant of L. madagascariensis is also present on Montagne d’Ambre, an isolated mountain in extreme northern Madagascar. This is of relevance because L. madagascariensis petteri has been described from this mountain as a subspecies. In the subsequent species account we will show that the name petteri does not apply to the L. madagascariensis specimens from Montagne d’Ambre but to another, sympatric lineage, thus justifying the elevation of petteri to species status.

Distribution. L. madagascariensis is reliably known from (1) its type locality Nosy Be, (2) Manarikoba Forest on the western slope of the Tsaratanana Massif (Andampy Campsite), (3) Manongarivo, (4) Maromiandra, (5) Andrafainkona, and (6) Montagne d’Ambre. These localities are in the Sambirano region and the North regions of Madagascar.

Figures

FIGURE 11. Specimens of Lygodactylus madagascariensis in life. A, B, Specimens from the type locality Nosy Be photographed in 1992 (not corresponding to any voucher or sample studied herein; identification by typical color pattern and provenance. C, D, Adult male ZSM 832/2003 from Manongarivo, photographed 2003.