A new species of geckos of the genus Cyrtodactylus Gray, 1827 from Arunachal Pradesh, India

Abstract

We here describe a new species of bent-toed geckos from the northeastern Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh, which is widespread across the Dafla and Mishmi hills, occurring at elevations ranging from 179 m to 1400 m. The new species is recovered as sister to the Cyrtodactylus khasiensis clade based on a molecular phylogeny inferred from mitochondrial NADH-ubiquinone oxidoreductase, subunit 2 gene. Intraspecific uncorrected pairwise sequence divergence (p-distance) for the new species was found to be between 0 and 5%, whereas the interspecific divergence from the closely-related congeners was between 19 and 30%. The new species can be differentiated from members of the C. khasiensis clade using a suite of morphological characters: moderate body size (SVL 64.9–81.7); 8–11 supralabials; 8–10 infralabials; 24–26 bluntly conical, feebly keeled dorsal tubercles; 50–60 paravertebral tubercles; ~38 ventral scales between ventrolateral folds; no precloacal groves; 6–10 precloacofemoral pores in a continuous series; 10–16 distal subdigital lamellae on IV of pes; subcaudal scalation of original tail without enlarged plates. This is the fourth reptile species described from Arunachal Pradesh from the expedition led by the team, and this further highlights the need for further herpetological investigations into the region.