The Muria rock gecko (''Cnemaspis muria'';
Indonesian: Cicak Batu Gunung Muria) is a species of
diurnal, rock-dwelling,
insectivorous
A robber fly eating a hoverfly
An insectivore is a carnivorous animal or plant that eats insects. An alternative term is entomophage, which can also refer to the human practice of eating insects.
The first vertebrate insectivores were ...
gecko
Geckos are small, mostly carnivorous lizards that have a wide distribution, found on every continent except Antarctica. Belonging to the infraorder Gekkota, geckos are found in warm climates throughout the world. They range from .
Geckos ar ...
endemic to
Indonesia. It is distributed throughout
Java. It was first identified by Riyanto et al (2019) on the southern slopes of
Gunung Muria
Mount Muria or Gunung Muria is a dormant volcano on the north coast of Java, Indonesia. It is located in the center of the Muria peninsula, which juts northward into the Java Sea on the north coast of Central Java, Indonesia east of Semarang, t ...
, a dormant volcano in central Java. To date, this is the only known location for the genus ''Cnemaspis'' on the island of Java. This discovery is geographically significant as the closest other species of ''Cnemaspis'' (''C. rajabasa'') was found in
Lampung, roughly 580 km away. The
holotype was caught at night and subsequent species were only found on large rocky
microhabitats
In ecology, the term habitat summarises the array of resources, physical and biotic factors that are present in an area, such as to support the survival and reproduction of a particular species. A species habitat can be seen as the physical ...
alongside rivers and coffee plantations. As it is an insectivore, it is believed to eat pests found on coffee plants; there are concerns about the use of insecticides jeopardizing the geckos as natural pest control agents.
In the initial reporting, only a single female was identified; however the species appears to be sexually dimorphic in regards to the ventral color pattern. The males identified have a yellow belly, compared to the white belly of the female. The ventral surface of the tail is yellow and white in males whereas the female's tail has alternating black and white rings bands which completely encircle the tail.
References
External links
Cnemaspis muria entry in the Reptarium
{{Taxonbar, from=Q85753102
muria
Reptiles of Indonesia
Reptiles described in 2019