A new species of large-bodied Hemidactylus Goldfuss, 1820 (Squamata: Gekkonidae) from the Western Ghats of India

Das, Sandeep; Pal, Saunak; Sasidharan, Siddharth; Palot, Muhamed Jafer; Veerappan, Deepak; Narayanan, Surya

doi:10.3897/vz.72.e76046

Cited by 6 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 25 publications

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“…Recent research on Hemidactylus has focused primarily on taxonomy and systematics (e.g. Ceriaco et al, 2020; Smid et al, 2020; 2023; Lobon-Rovira et al, 2021; Adhikari et al, 2022; Das et al,2022; Pal & Mirza, 2022; Khandekar et al, 2023; Narayanan et al, 2023), with fewer studies on biogeography (Lajmi et al, 2019; Murdoch, 2022), diversification (Lajmi & Karanth, 2020; Luzete et al, 2022), invasive potential and dispersal ecology (Agarwal et al, 2021; Rato et al, 2021; Lamb et al,2021; Lapwong et al, 2021), and ectoparasite biology (Borroto-Páez et al, 2020; Diaz et al, 2020). Although many of these studies involve phylogenetic reconstructions, they are mostly localized.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Globetrotting geckos: Historical biogeography suggests an Indian origin and “Out-Of-India” dispersal for the cosmopolitanHemidactylusgeckos

Agashe,

Biswas,

Karanth

2024

Preprint

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Aim – Following the breakup of Gondwana dispersal events both into and out of India have influenced the biotic assembly of the surrounding landmasses. The cosmopolitan Hemidactylus presents an intriguing group to examine these instances, particularly given its sister relationship with the endemic Dravidogecko found in India′s Western Ghats. Despite earlier theories of Afro–Arabian or Southeast Asian origins for Hemidactylus, its deep divergence from Dravidogecko (~57 million years ago) suggests a potential Indian origin, thus contradicting an ″Into–India″ scenario proposed for the current Indian tetrapod groups. We thus aim to resolve the origins and shed light on the inter–continental dispersals in Hemidactylus by reconstructing its biogeographic history. Location – Worldwide Taxon – Hemidactylus Geckos Methods – We use six nuclear genes to reconstruct a reduced representation backbone phylogeny of Hemidactylus using likelihood, Bayesian, and coalescent based methods. We further assemble a timetree using a concatenated dataset of nuclear and mitochondrial markers from 132 of the 192 Hemidactylus species by constraining the topology with the backbone phylogeny and secondary calibrations. We use this chronogram to reconstruct ancestral geographic ranges using BioGeoBEARS, employing a time-stratified approach in conjunction with plate tectonics information to explicitly test four hypotheses regarding the origin of the genus — An Indian origin, a Southeast Asian origin, a Saharo–Arabian origin, or an Afrotropical origin. Results – Our findings suggest that the ancestral lineage of Hemidactylus and Dravidogecko colonized the drifting Indian plate from Southeast Asia approximately 57 million years ago, eventually evolving into the two genera in the Indian subcontinent. Following this, Hemidactylus dispersed multiple times from India to Africa and Asia. Main Conclusion – This study proposes an Indian origin for these widely distributed geckos, representing a rare instance of an ″Out–of–India″ dispersal scenario observed in a non–Gondwanan squamate group. Additionally, our research underscores the significance of incorporating sister taxa in biogeographic analyses to avoid misinterpretations of ancestral ranges.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Globetrotting geckos: Historical biogeography suggests an Indian origin and “Out-Of-India” dispersal for the cosmopolitanHemidactylusgeckos

Agashe,

Biswas,

Karanth

2024

Preprint

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Forests and its biodiversity in the Western Ghats of Kerala

Easa,

Rajesh

2025

Ecohydrology of Kerala

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Two new species of Hemidactylus Goldfuss, 1820 (Squamata: Gekkonidae) from the rocky outcrops of the Deccan plateau, peninsular India

Adhikari

Achyuthan

Kumar

et al. 2022

Zootaxa

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The gekkonid diversity of the under-explored dry zones in Peninsular India is not yet completely inventoried, as evidenced by frequent new species descriptions. Here, we describe two new species of Hemidactylus from the dry rocky zones of Deccan Plateau viz. Hemidactylus mahonyi sp. nov. from Sandur Hills and Hemidactylus srikanthani sp. nov. from Devarayana Durga Hills, Karnataka State of Peninsular India. The new species belong to the morphologically cryptic H. murrayi Clade but differ from each other and the known congeners by a set of morphological characters and possess non-overlapping distribution ranges. Furthermore, the new species are also divergent (> 6.4% uncorrected p-distance) from their nearest related congeners, and from one another with respect to the ND2 mitochondrial gene. Recently, other new species of reptiles have been described from the two aforesaid type localities, indicating that further bio-inventories in the dry zones of peninsular India will yield more such novelties.

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A new species of large-bodied Hemidactylus Goldfuss, 1820 (Squamata: Gekkonidae) from the Western Ghats of India

Cited by 6 publications

References 25 publications

Globetrotting geckos: Historical biogeography suggests an Indian origin and “Out-Of-India” dispersal for the cosmopolitanHemidactylusgeckos

Globetrotting geckos: Historical biogeography suggests an Indian origin and “Out-Of-India” dispersal for the cosmopolitanHemidactylusgeckos

Forests and its biodiversity in the Western Ghats of Kerala

Two new species of Hemidactylus Goldfuss, 1820 (Squamata: Gekkonidae) from the rocky outcrops of the Deccan plateau, peninsular India

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