Hemidactylus Murrayi Gleadow, 1887

Mahony, Stephen, 2011, Taxonomic revision of Hemidactylus brookii Gray: a re-examination of the type series and some Asian synonyms, and a discussion of the obscure species Hemidactylus subtriedrus Jerdon (Reptilia: Gekkonidae), Zootaxa 3042, pp. 37-67 : 44

Hemidactylus Murrayi Gleadow, 1887

Hemidactylus murrayi was described from a series of 24 specimens (8 males, 16 females) collected from two adjacent localities “Pimpri and Garvi, in the “Dangs”, …., at the northwest extremity of the Syhadri or Ghat range, between Khandesh and Surat ” ( Gleadow 1887). Pimpri (ca. 20°47’55”N, 73°35’00”E) and Garvi (ca. 20°50’12”N, 73°40’40”E) are two towns currently situated in the Dangs District of southeast Gujarat. Unfortunately, the repository of the syntypes was not mentioned in the description. Representative specimens are not currently present in BMNH or ZSI. Gleadow also did not deposit specimens in BNHM ( Das & Chaturvedi 1998), despite his later plea on behalf of the society for lizard specimens ( Gleadow 1905). The whereabouts of these type specimens have not been reported and are herein considered lost. In order to clarify the status of this species in the future, a topotypical specimen should be designated as a neotype. Based on the original description, this species appears morphologically to be a representative of the “rock-dwelling morph”, and thus very unlikely to be conspecific with H. brookii s.s.