Cnemaspis limi Das & Grismer, 2003

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 : 97-99

Cnemaspis limi Das & Grismer, 2003

Lim’s Rock Gecko

Fig. 50

Cnemaspis sp. Hendrickson 1966:56

Cnemaspis nigridius Manthey & Grossmann 1997:214 ; Lim & Lim 1999:142

Cnemaspis cf. nigridia Chan-ard et al. 1999:104

Holotype. ZRC 2.5289 . Type locality: “ Gua Tengkuk Air , Gunung Kajang , adult male …collected from Pulau Tioman [Pahang] (02°50’ N, 104°09’ E), West Malaysia ” at 980 m in elevation.

Diagnosis. Maximum SVL 88.2 mm; 8–12 supralabials; 7–10 infralabials; ventral scales weakly keeled; no precloacal pores; 25–35 paravertebral tubercles; body tubercles randomly arranged, weakly present on flanks, absent from lateral caudal furrows; no ventrolateral caudal tubercles; lateral row of caudal tubercles present; caudal tubercles not encircling tail; subcaudals smooth bearing a median, weakly enlarged, scale row; one or two postcloacal tubercles on each side of tail base; no enlarged femoral, subtibial or submetatarsal scales; subtibials weakly keeled; 29–36 subdigital fourth toe lamellae; large, black, round spots on nape and anterior portion of body; dorsal caudal tubercles white; at least posterior one-half of subcaudal region white (Tables 6,7).

Color pattern in life ( Fig. 50 ). Dorsal ground color of head, body, limbs, and tail dark brown; thin yellow reticulum on top of head and body; a dark, upper, postorbital stripe extends onto nape; a dark, lower, postorbital stripe extends onto shoulder region; a medial, dark marking on nape; 5–7 dark, paravertebral spots occur on back and flanked by diffuse, dark blotches on sides; faint, dark mottling on hind limbs and more on forelimbs; diffuse, dark bands on tail; anterior two-thirds of tail encircled by large, white to cream-colored tubercles; ventral surfaces of head, lateral sections of belly, limbs, and anterior one-third of tail dull-brown, immaculate; ventral surfaces of belly beige. At night the brown ground color of the dorsum fades to white, accenting the black body spots and the yellow reticulum.

Distribution. Cnemaspis limi is known only from Pulau Tioman, Pahang and the adjacent island of Tulai, Johor in the Seribuat Archipelago of Peninsular Malaysia ( Grismer 2011a,b; Fig. 4 ).

Natural History. According to Grismer (2011a), Cnemaspis limi is a saxicolous gecko inhabiting primary and secondary coastal vegetation in lowland and hill dipterocarp forests ( Fig. 50 ) from sea level to the summit of Gunung Kajang at 1,026 m in elevation. Lizards are found almost exclusively on large granite boulders where, during the day, they are active on vertical, shaded surfaces, within crevices, and within the cave-like situations formed by the aggregations of boulders piled on top of one another. In the latter microhabitat, densities can be surprisingly high. Lizards usually sit facing head-down or upside down and run to the base of the rock to escape. At night, however, C. limi is less active and almost exclusively restricted to cave-like situations. This is especially true for lizards near the summit of Gunung Kajang. Bullock (1966) found the larvae of butterflies, grasshoppers, beetles, and pieces of ants in the stomachs of lizards he examined, indicating C. limi does not feed on the ground like C. peninsularis sp. nov. with which it is sympatric. Grismer (2011a) reported females carrying one or two eggs having been observed during July and September and eggs stuck to the undersides of rocks during April indicating C. limi breeds throughout the year.

Relationships. Cnemaspis limi is a basal lineage in a tritomy composing the Southern Sunda clade ( Fig. 2 ).

Material examined. Peninsular Malaysia: Pahang, Pulau Tioman ZRC 2.5289 – 90 , 2.3504 – 06 (type series). Material examined since Das and Grismer (2003): Peninsular Malaysia: Johor: Pulau Tulai LSUHC 5053 ; Pahang, Pulau Tioman LSUHC 3801–02 , 3859 , 3888 , 3902 , 3904 , 4410 , 4425 , 4480–82 , 4485–88 , 4563–64 , 4596 , 5424 , 5441 , 5510 , 5515 , 5518 , 5521 , 6203 , 6206–07 , 6210 , 6212 , 6267 , 8035 .

Nigridia group. The nigridia group contains two very dissimilar species from extreme northwestern Borneo; the large, nocturnal, granite boulder-dwelling Cnemaspis nigridia and the much smaller, diurnal, karst-dwelling species C. paripari ( Fig. 2 ). The monophyly of this group is further supported in that these are the only species in the Southern Sunda clade to have enlarged scales beneath the first metatarsals. This character state occurs in the two species of the Ca Mau clade, four of 22 species of the Northern Sunda clade and does not occur in the Pattani clade ( Table 6 ). Therefore, we consider this character state to be derived.

The nigridia group is diagnosed as having a maximum SVL of 50.7–75.5 mm; 10–13 supralabials; 9–11 infralabials; weakly to strongly keeled ventral scales; 2–16 contiguous, pore-bearing precloacal scales with round pores; 26–43 paravertebral tubercles; randomly to occasionally weakly aligned dorsal tubercles on the body; no tubercles on flanks or in the lateral caudal furrows; caudal tubercles do not encircle tail; lateral row of caudal tubercles present; subcaudals keeled and bearing a median row of enlarged, keeled scales; 2–4 postcloacal tubercles on either side of the base of the tail; no enlarged femoral or subtibial scales; subtibials keeled; submetatarsal scales of first toe enlarged; and 26–31 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 4. Distribution of the species in the Pattani and Southern Sunda clades. Stars indicate type localities.

FIGURE 50. Cnemaspis limi from Pulau Tioman, Pahang, Peninsular Malaysia. Upper left: adult male (LSUDPC 6185) in the light color pattern phase. Upper right: adult female (LSUDPC 5623) in the dark color pattern phase. Lower: granite boulder microhabitat on the Tekek-Juara Trail, Pulau Tioman. Photographs by LLG.