Gecko species from Jaintia Hills among six found in NE

GUWAHATI: A team of scientists has discovered six new species of bent-toed geckos in the Northeast, including one in West Jaintia Hills of Meghalaya, a study published in the taxonomic journal, Zootaxa, informed.
Apart from Cyrtodactylus Jaintiaensis (named after Jaintia Hills and the largest bent-toed gecko), three of the bent-toed geckos discovered are from Guwahati (Cyrtodactylus Guwahatiensis), Kaziranga (Cyrtodactylus Kazirangaensis) and Abhayapuri (Cyrtodactylus Septentrionalis) in Assam.
The species found in Guwahati is the fifth such lizard to be described in the name of an Indian city, the journal published from New Zealand, said.
Among the other two found, one is from Nagaland (Cyrtodactylus Nagalandensis) while the other is from Tripura (Cyrtodactylus Montanus named after the Jampui Hills)
The team of scientists comprised Ishan Agarwal, Varad B. Giri, R. Chaitanya, Stephen Mahony of Natural History Museum, London and global authority on geckos, and Aaron Bauer of Villanova University, US.
“An adult female (BNHS 2248, field number CES09/1228), was collected from the vicinity of Tyrshi Falls near Jowai town in West Jaintia Hills district of Meghalaya by Tarun Khichi, Aniruddha Datta-Roy and Ishan Agarwal on November 15, 2010. The species is only known from the vicinity of Tyrshi Falls, in the Jaintia Hills. The geckos were spotted at night by eye-shine on vertical rock faces,” it was stated in the peer-reviewed journal.
The team used mitochondrial sequence data to identify divergent lineages within the gekkonid genus Cyrtodactylus in Northeast India besides morphological data to describe six new species from within the Indo-Burma clade of Cyrtodactylus.
“The new species share an irregular colour pattern but differ from described species from the region in morphology and mito-chondrial sequence data,” it stated.
Bent-toed geckos of the genus Cyrtodactylus are the most species-rich genus of geckos globally with over 250 species.
“The description of these six new species brings the total number of Cyrtodactylus in the Himalayas and mainland Indo-Burma to 56, including 15 Indian species. This makes Cyrtodactylus one of the most micro-endemic groups of terrestrial vertebrates in the region, as is the case for the genus across much of its range,” it added.