Hemidactylus kolliensis Agarwal, Bauer, Giri & Khandekar

Khandekar, Akshay, Thackeray, Tejas, Pawar, Swapnil & Agarwal, Ishan, 2020, A new medium-bodied rupicolous Hemidactylus Goldfuss, 1820 (Squamata Gekkonidae) from the Sirumalai massif, Tamil Nadu, India, Zootaxa 4852 (1), pp. 83-100 : 87-90

Hemidactylus kolliensis Agarwal, Bauer, Giri & Khandekar

Kolli rock gecko

( Figures 2 & 3A ; Table 3)

Holotype. BNHS 2537 , adult male, from below Sollakadu on Kolli Hills Road (11.324° N, 78.344 E; ca. 900 m asl.), Namakkal district, Tamil Nadu state, India, collected by Aparna Lajmi, Aniruddha Datta-Roy and Ishan Agarwal on 23 March 2011.

Additional material. NCBS-BH736 (AK 716) , NCBS-BH737 (AK 717) , NCBS-BH738 (AK 718), NCBS-BH742 (AK 727), adult males , NCBS-BH739 (AK 719) , NCBS-BH741 (AK 726), adult females , NCBS-BH740 (AK 720), juvenile, from near Mangalam waterfalls, Pachaimalai (11.342° N, 78.604° E; ca. 650 m asl.), Perambalur District, Tamil Nadu state, India, Collected by Akshay Khandekar, Ishan Agarwal, Swapnil Pawar & Tejas Thackeray on 29 May 2019 .

Diagnosis. A medium-sized Hemidactylus, SVL 80 mm (n=8 including holotype). Dorsal pholidosis heterogeneous, comprising subcircular granular scales intermixed with fairly regularly arranged longitudinal rows of enlarged, strongly keeled, pointed tubercles, that are heterogeneous in shape and size, extending from occiput to tail; enlarged tubercles on the two most medial parasagittal rows smaller than rest on dorsum and these rows most broadly spaced from one another, gradually increasing in size and becoming conical towards flanks, last two rows on flanks are smaller and strongly conical; 15 or 16 dorsal tubercle rows at mid-body, 16–18 tubercles in paravertebral rows. Ventrolateral folds indistinct; about 29–34 ventral scale rows at mid-body. Digits with enlarged scansors, lamellae in straight transverse series, all divided except the apical and a few basal that are undivided, nine or 10 lamellae beneath first digit of manus, eight or nine beneath first digit of pes and 10 or 11 beneath fourth digit of manus and 10–12 beneath fourth digit of pes. Males with 21–25 femoral pores on each side separated by two or three poreless scales. Tail with 4–8 much enlarged, strongly keeled, conical tubercles forming whorls; median row of subcaudal plates large, covering almost entire portion of the tail; two subequal postcloacal spurs on each side that are much smaller than dorsal tubercles at mid-body. Dorsal colouration brown with five indistinct transversely arranged dark saddle-shaped markings running from the occiput to the sacrum, limbs with purple-grey bars.

Variation and additional information from additional material examined. Mensural and meristic data for the type series are given in Table 3. There are four males, two females, and a single juvenile ranging in size from 35.6 mm to 80.0 mm. All paratypes resemble the holotype except as follows: 1. number of gular scales bordering inner postmental on each side (six in NCBS-BH736 , NCBS-BH739 and NCBS-BH740 ; seven in NCBS-BH738 ; five on left and seven on right in NCBS-BH737 ; seven on left and nine on right in NCBS-BH742 ), 2. contact of inner postmental (with infralabial I on left and infralabial I & II on right side in NCBS-BH736 ; with infralabial I & II on each side in NCBS-BH736 , NCBS-BH737 , NCBS-BH738 , NCBS-BH740 , NCBS-BH742 ; with infralabial I on each side in NCBS-BH7389 ), 3. number of gular scales bordering outer postmental on each side (five on left and seven on right in NCBS-BH739 , NCBS-BH738 , and NCBS-BH742 ; eight on left and 10 on right in NCBS-BH736 ; eight on left and nine on right in NCBS-BH740 ; nine on left and 11 on right in NCBS-BH741 ), 4. contact of outer postmental with infralabials (on left side divided and eight gular scales bordering outer postmental on each side in NCBS-BH737 ; in contact with infralabial II only on left and separated from infralabial II by two large gular scales on right side in NCBS-BH741 ; in contact with infralabial II on each side in NCBS-BH736 , NCBS-BH737 , NCBS-BH740 and NCBS-BH742 ; in contact with infralabial II on left and infralabials II & III on right in NCBS-BH738 ; in contact with infralabials I & II on each side in NCBS-BH739 ). Three paratypes— NCBS-BH737 , NCBS-BH739 , and NCBS-BH740 , with original and complete tails, slightly longer than body (TL/ SVL 1.26 , 1.20 and 1.12 respectively), while in other three paratypes— NCBS-BH738 , NCBS-BH741 , and NCBS-BH742 with either partially or fully regenerated but complete tails, marginally shorter than body (TL/ SVL 0.94, 0.83 and 0.98 respectively), and one paratype— NCBS-BH736 with incomplete tail. All additional specimens closely agree with the holotype in colouration; juvenile specimen NCBS-BH740 has a well-defined dorsal pattern and 12 altering light and dark bands on the tail, and an adult male specimen NCBS-BH737 has 10 altering light and dark bands on the tail; altering bands on distal half portion of the tail in juvenile specimen NCBS-BH740 are much lighter and darker than rest of the specimens ( Figure 7C ). The colouration of the regenerated tail in life is brown, without any enlarged tubercles .

Distribution and Natural history. Hemidactylus kolliensis is known from an elevation range of 650–900 m asl from two isolated hill ranges (Kollimalai in Namakkal and Pachaimalai in Perambalur district, Tamil Nadu) that are within <30 km straight line distance ( Figure 1 left panel). At Pachaimalai hills, individuals of Hemidactylus kolliensis were seen active at night about half an hour to two hours after sunset on large rocks around the dried-out Mangalam waterfalls in a deciduous forest patch at 650 m asl.. The species seems to be locally abundant as we encountered>25 individuals within less than an hour, though only a single specimen has been collected on multiple visits to the type locality. On the following night, few more individuals were seen on boulders along the roadside at similar elevations within <5 km aerial distance from the Mangalam waterfalls ( Figure 3A ). Sympatric lizards at these localities include Hemidactylus frenatus Duméril & Bibron , Hemidactylus parvimaculatus Deraniyagala , Hemidactylus cf. triedrus , Cnemaspis cf. yercaudensis , Cnemaspis cf. gracilis , Hemiphyllodactylus cf. kolliensis and Psammophilus cf. blanfordanus .

Figures

FIGURE 1. Left panel: elevation map of southern India showing the localities of sampled members of graniticolus clade (circles) and acanthopholis clade (triangles); right panel: maximum likelihood phylogeny based on ND2 of the members of prashadi group which are distributed south of 13° N. Numbers at nodes indicate bootstrap support in %, value <70 and outgroups not shown.

FIGURE 2. Hemidactylus kolliensis in life: (A) male, NCBS-BH737 and (B) juvenile, NCBS-BH740.

FIGURE 3. Habitat photo of (A) Hemidactylus kolliensis from Pachaimalai, Perambalur District, Tamil Nadu, (B) Hemidactylus sirumalaiensis sp. nov. from Sirumalai, Dindigul District, Tamil Nadu, India.

FIGURE 7. Hemidactylus sirumalaiensis sp. nov. in life: (A) male, holotype, NCBS-BH743, (B) female, paratype, NCBS- BH746 and (C) juvenile, paratype, NCBS-BH745.