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''Cyrtodactylus collegalensis'', also known as the Kollegal ground gecko or forest spotted gecko, is a species of
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 ...
found in and around
Mysore hills, at the junction of the
Western Ghats and the
Eastern Ghats, in
South India. Recent taxonomic works and genetic studies revealed that the formerly-supposed
genus is actually a
subgenus
In biology, a subgenus (plural: subgenera) is a taxonomic rank directly below genus.
In the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature, a subgeneric name can be used independently or included in a species name, in parentheses, placed between t ...
of the widespread genus ''
Cyrtodactylus
''Cyrtodactylus'' (Greek κυρτος ''kurtos'' "curved", from κυπτω ''kuptō'' "to stoop"; δακτυλος ''daktulos'' "finger, toe") is a diverse genus of Asian geckos, commonly known as bent-toed geckos, bow-fingered geckos, and fores ...
''. It is often confused with the
forest spotted gecko (''Cyrtodactylus speciosus'').
Habits and habitat
They are primarily ground-dwelling, hiding under thick leaf-litter. They are
nocturnal
Nocturnality is an animal behavior characterized by being active during the night and sleeping during the day. The common adjective is "nocturnal", versus diurnal meaning the opposite.
Nocturnal creatures generally have highly developed sens ...
,
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 ...
and are thought to be
oviparous
Oviparous animals are animals that lay their eggs, with little or no other embryonic development within the mother. This is the reproductive method of most fish, amphibians, most reptiles, and all pterosaurs, dinosaurs (including birds), and ...
. Some species in this group have been documented to lay eggs. They live in forests, be it dry, mixed or wet in complexion, mainly along the hilly tracts.
Distribution
The gecko was described in 1870 from
BR Hills
The Biligirirangana Hills or Biligirirangan Hills (as referred to in biology and geology) is a hill range situated in south-western Karnataka, at its border with Tamil Nadu (Erode District) in South India. The area is called Biligiri Ranganatha ...
in Southern
Karnataka.
It was treated as synonymous with ''
Cyrtodactylus nebulosus'' by Boulenger.
It has later been reported from found in adjacent hill ranges of
Eastern Ghats and
Western Ghats, at the junction of
Maharashtra, Karnataka,
Kerala and
Tamil Nadu states, in
South India. In
Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an ...
, its presence is considered dubious.
Notes
References
*
*
*
* Agarwal, I., Mirza, Z. A., Pal, S., Maddock, S. T., Mishra, A., & Bauer, A. M. (2016). A new species of the Cyrtodactylus (Geckoella) collegalensis (Beddome, 1870) complex (Squamata: Gekkonidae) from Western India. Zootaxa, 4170(2), 339–354.
* Agarwal, I. (2016). Two new species of ground-dwelling Cyrtodactylus (Geckoella) from the Mysore Plateau, south India. Zootaxa, 4193(2), 228–244.
External links
*
Cyrtodactylus
Reptiles of India
Endemic fauna of India
Taxa named by Richard Henry Beddome
Reptiles described in 1870
{{Cyrtodactylus-stub