Herpetofauna of the Maninjau caldera, West Sumatra, Indonesia, with special account to geckos

Abstract

The field surveys were conducted in the Maninjau Lake region, Sumatera Barat, Indonesia, in February 2020, mainly on the north-eastern slope of the Maninjau caldera at 450–600 m a.s.l. The slopes of the Maninjau caldera are naturally covered by a tropical rainforest that remains quite undisturbed from an altitude of 900 m up to the crater ridge. Natural vegetation of the northern and eastern slopes at altitudes from 450 and 500 to 600 m a.s.l. is replaced by rice plantations or mixed forest gardens. The typical habitat consisted of an evergreen broad-leaved forest on the slopes along a mountain creek and around a waterfall. Herein, we report 11 new species records for the Maninjau caldera; 9 new species records for Agam Regency; 3 new species records for Sumatra and Indonesia and 1 species of Cnemaspis Strauch, 1887 new for science. The morphology of rare and poorly known species of the bent toed gecko, Cyrtodactylus agamensis (Bleeker, 1860) is described for the first time. A high diversity of Cyrtodactylus Gray, 1827 occurs in Indochina and on the Thai-Malay Peninsula (150 species) but only six species in Sumatra. The Malay-Indochinese genus Cnemaspis has a recent spurt of diversity and now reaches eight species in Sumatra and only one species reaches Java. Current gecko diversity in Sumatra comprises 29 species in eight genera. The level of endemism level in geckos is very high and reaches 48%. The herpetofauna of Maninjau Caldera includes 26 amphibian and 46 reptile species. The faunistic core of the West Sumatran herpetofauna consists of Malay-Sundaic, Sumatran endemic, Sunda-Indochinese and widely distributed Oriental elements. The West Sumatran herpetofauna is characterized by the presence of a mutual species with Indochina, Malaysia, east India, Myanmar, the Andaman and Nicobar islands and Sri Lanka, often with disjunction in the huge territory of Indochina; species with continuous distribution from the Indian subcontinent to Papua and Oceania; and generalist species with wide pan-Indopacific distribution.

Morphometric Analysis of Sumatran, Kalimantan, and Javan <i>Cyrtodactylus</i>, which were Labelled as <i>Cyrtodactylus marmoratus</i>, Revealed Undescribed Species

“…In concordant, the comparison between C. marmoratus from Martabe and C. agamensis resulted that it has still unique morphological variations. Cyrtodactylus marmoratus from Martabe is easily distinguished from C. agamensis by fewer supralabial (10-12 vs 10-13), fewer infralabial (8-10 vs 9-12), widely dorsal tubercles (19-24 vs 17-21), fewer ventral scales (30-40 vs 50-67), a lower subdigital lamella on 4th toe (19-22 vs 21-26) (Milto & Bezman-Moseyko 2021).…”

Common but ignored: a new species of Cyrtodactylus (Chordata, Reptilia, Squamata, Gekkonidae) from lowland Sumatra Barat, Indonesia

“…Although they found a significant number of reptiles and amphibian and reported a new species of Bufonidae ( Amphibia : Anura ), no Cyrtodactylus were collected. Milto and Bezman-Moseyko (2021) also surveyed the surroundings of Lake Maninjau, reporting two new records Limnonectes deinodon Dehling, 2014, Dicroglossidae and Sphenomorphus scotophilus (Boulenger, 1900) and one new species Cnemaspis calderana Milto & Bezman-Moseyko, 2021 for Sumatra and provided extended descriptions of Cyrtodactylus agamensis . Nugraha et al (2022) surveyed lowland habitat generally close to human settlement such as paddy fields, peat swamp near the coastline, streams and other plantations.…”