Gehyra pluraporosa, Doughty & Bourke & Tedeschi & Pratt & Oliver & Palmer & Moritz, 2018

Doughty, Paul, Bourke, Gayleen, Tedeschi, Leonardo G., Pratt, Renae C., Oliver, Paul M., Palmer, Russell A. & Moritz, Craig, 2018, Species delimitation in the Gehyra nana (Squamata: Gekkonidae) complex: cryptic and divergent morphological evolution in the Australian Monsoonal Tropics, with the description of four new species, Zootaxa 4403 (2), pp. 201-244 : 224-226

Gehyra pluraporosa sp. nov. Bourke, Doughty, Tedeschi, Oliver, C. Myers & Moritz

Northern Kimberley gecko

(lineage nana 8)

Figs. 4 , 15 , 16

Holotype. WAM R174024 (male), collected from King Edward River , Western Australia (14.75373°S; 126.21050°E) on 7 March 2014 by Doughty, P., Ellis, R.J. & Catullo, R.

Paratypes (4). All from Western Australia: WAM R174026 (subadult), King Edward River west (14.75413°S; 126.21037°E); WAM R176170 ( CCM 0918) (male), King Edward River campsite, 30 km north of Theda Station homestead (14.51903°S; 126.45811°E); WAM R176372 ( CCM 5962, TS32) (female) and WAM R176373 ( CCM 5963, TS33) (female), Bruces Ck, Theda Station (15.65862°S; 129.65944°E).

Diagnosis. A Gehyra with small body size (average 43 mm, 39–46 mm SVL), no flap of skin between limbs, ~2/3 of dorsal half of rostral deeply furrowed with groove, internasal usually present, 2 postnasals with upper larger than lower, first supralabial not taller than second, 2 pairs of chin shields, snout short and straight to convex in lateral view, first digit of manus and pes without protruding claw, 6 or 7 divided subdigital lamellae on fourth toe, 25 or 26 pre-cloacal pores in males in chevron with outer edges curving anteriorly along thighs. Background colouration in life light purplish-brown; alternating pattern of short pale yellowishwhite transverse bars to either side of midline formed by irregular-shaped pale blotches or spots, and dark poorly-defined bands on the dorsum with extensive pale yellow to orange white stippling over dorsal surfaces including head, limbs and tail.

Description. Body size small (mean 43.0 mm, range 38.6–46.3 mm SVL), trunk length moderate (TrunkL/SVL 0.40, 0.34–0.43), body shape moderately elongate and dorsoventrally flattened, head also dorsoventrally flattened (mean HD/HL 0.41, range 0.37–0.46), with short snout (SnEye/HL 0.44, 0.42–0.46), straight to slightly convex in lateral view, slight depression between curved poorly-defined canthal ridges; neck wide with moderate constriction. Limbs moderate length (ArmL/SVL 0.09, 0.09–0.11; HindL/SVL 0.10, 0.09–0.12); digits short; claw protruding from dorsal surface of expanded circular terminal toepad, no claws on anteriormost digit of manus and pes; 5 or 6 subdigital lamellae on fourth finger, 6 or 7 subdigital lamellae on the fourth toe; no granules between lamellae.

Nostrils rounded, directed laterally and dorsally, contacted by rostral, supranasal, two postnasals and first supralabial; supralabials 7–9 and infralabials 6–7; rostral ~1.5 x wider than high, gabled steeply with a deep furrow and fine medial groove ~70–80% of rostral height extending from dorsal edge; supranasals rounded or squarish, dorsal and ventral edges curved, lateral edge concave to accommodate upper postnasal, supranasals separated by a single internarial scale along dorsal edge of rostral (except for 1 of 5 individuals); 2 postnasals with upper much larger than lower in 4 of 5 specimens; mental narrow with straight sides, terminating in triangular point ~1/2 height of inner chin shields; outer chin shields smaller (1/2–2/3 length) with rounded lateral-posterior edges, smaller irregular-sized granular scales lateral to outer chin shields; inner chin shields usually excluded from or in point contact with second infralabial; first scale of parainfralabial row of scales forming a notch on postero-ventral edge of third infralabial, granular scales extending to contact second infralabial.

Scales on dorsum small, non-overlapping; scales on crown are smaller then increase in size near eyes, scales on snout large and rounded; slightly enlarged row of scales above supralabials; scales on ventrum flat and ~6– 8 x larger than those on dorsum, becoming granular anterior to arms; granular scales on gular region, gradually increasing in size towards parainfralabial row and infralabials; scales on ventral surface of thighs and anterior to cloaca enlarged and flat; medial row of scales on tail greatly enlarged and much wider than long, bordered laterally by 1–3 rows of moderately enlarged scales, scales on dorsal and lateral surfaces of tail slightly enlarged and tending to be arranged in regular rows; regenerated tails with irregular scales not arranged in rows.

Two males with 25 or 26 pre-cloacal pores forming a shallow chevron with the apex pointed anteriorly; pores penetrating scale; 2–3 moderately enlarged protruding cloacal spurs to either side of cloaca (females with only slightly enlarged analogous scales); gravid female (46 mm SVL) with a single large egg and enlarged calcium glands on the sides of the neck. Tail cylindrical and moderately long (no original tail tips on the 5 specimens).

Colouration. Background colour of dorsal surfaces in life light to dark tan; dark blackish-brown irregularlyshaped bars tending to be transversely orientated; dark bars and spots alternating with short rows of pale white spots or bars; scattered dark and smaller pale spots and short bars on head; supralabials lightly to darkly stippled with maculated appearance formed by hiatus of pigment near sutures; infralabials, mental, chin shields and gulars towards edge of jaw with light to heavy dark stippling; upper surfaces of limbs with small pale spots and dark spots or short bars, continuing to dorsal surfaces of digits; ventrum pale off-white with light stippling towards lateral edges; dorsal and lateral surfaces of original tails with alternating pale and dark rows of spots; regenerated tails with grey scales with scattered wavy dark longitudinal lines; ventral surface of tail as for ventrum.

Habitat. This species has been collected from sandstone rock formations in open woodlands. Its geographic range overlaps those of G. nana (lineage nana 4), G. australis , G. koira and G. multiporosa , and it occurs sympatrically with the larger G. xenopus .

Distribution. Gehyra pluraporosa sp. nov. is only known from localities on the King Edward River, including Bruces Ck near Mud Springs on Theda Station and approximately 30 km north of Theda Station in the northern Kimberley.

Etymology. pluraporosa is a combination of plurus (Latin) for ‘many’ and refers to numerous pre-cloacal pores observed in males of this species; also an allusion to the Kimberley G. variegata group species G. multiporosa which has a larger body size and over 50 pre-cloacal pores.

Comparisons with other species. Gehyra pluraporosa sp. nov. is most similar to other small-bodied species (SVL <50 mm) from the Kimberley. However, the numerous pores in males distinguish it from all other such species. In addition, in 4 of 5 specimens the upper postnasal is much larger than the lower postnasal (vs similar in size compared to other G. nana group species), the first supralabial is not taller than the second (vs first taller) and the rostral is deeply furrowed (vs moderately grooved), although a larger sample size would test the utility of these diagnostic characters. Gehyra pluraporosa sp. nov. also has a distinctive dorsal pattern, lacking the clearly-defined dark spots of most other G. nana group species and having transversely elongate dark markings that alternate with rows of smaller white spots. In addition, the background colour is heavily marked with fine stippling (vs plain). In life, there are yellow to purple hues in the dorsal patterning which is also unique for small Kimberley Gehyra .

Figures

FIGURE 15. Holotype of Gehyra pluraporosa sp. nov. (WAM R174024) from King Edward River west, WA, in dorsal, ventral and lateral views (scale bar = 10 mm).

FIGURE 16. Variation within Gehyra pluraporosasp. nov. (scale bar = 10 mm).

FIGURE4. Visualisation of outcomes of linear discriminant analysis on morphologicaltraits of Gehyra nana group specimens across: upper plot) the four phylogenetically divergent lineages we describe here and the G. nana complex (confidence ellipse removed); lower plot) lineages within the G. nana species complex (for nana8 we removed the confidence ellipse due to the small sample sizes for this lineage; n = 5).Vectors indicate the relative contributions of strongly loading traits for the first 2 LDA axes.