Maiden gecko
| Maiden gecko | ||||||||||||
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Maiden gecko on Santa Cruz (Galápagos) |
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| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Lepidodactylus lugubris | ||||||||||||
| ( Duméril & Bibron , 1836) |
The maiden gecko ( Lepidodactylus lugubris ), also known as the scaly finger gecko , is a gecko that stays small and is active at night and at dawn .
Occurrence and living conditions
He comes from Sri Lanka , the Nicobar and Andaman Islands , the Malay Peninsula , the Indo-Australian Archipelago and many islands in Oceania . It was released by humans in many other locations including New Zealand , northern South America , the west coast of Central America and the Galápagos Islands . The maiden gecko is very adaptable. It is often found near the beach in the leaf axils of palm trees or screw trees . But it also colonizes building walls. Jungferngeckos feed on small insects and spiders.
features
The maiden gecko reaches a length of eight centimeters. The tail accounts for more than half of the length. The toes have two rows of reddish adhesive lamellae that widen towards the front. The fifth toe has a small claw. The basic color is brown. The back and tail are drawn by light and dark transverse bands. At high temperatures, black or dark brown spots appear on the back and tail, the basic color becomes beige.
Reproduction
The females are territorial and defend their territory by biting and chasing. They reproduce parthenogenetically , that is, the females lay 1–2 unfertilized eggs at short intervals of 14 to 60 days, from which clones of the mother animal hatch after 68 to 93 days. The young are 3.5 to 3.7 centimeters long when they hatch.
Populations that include males and that reproduce sexually appear to belong to a separate taxon that is related to the parthenogenetic, all-female taxon, but not its direct ancestor.
literature
- Manfred Rogner : Lizards. Volume 1: geckos, pinnipeds, agamas, chameleons and iguanas. Ulmer, Stuttgart 1992, ISBN 3-8001-7248-8 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Vitaly Volobouev, Georges Pasteur, Ivan Ineich, Bernard Dutrillaux: Chromosomal evidence for a hybrid origin of diploid parthenogenetic females from the unisexual-bisexual Lepidodactylus lugubris complex (Reptilia, Gekkonidae). In: Cytogenetics and Cell Genetics. Vol. 63, No. 3, 1993, pp. 194-199, doi : 10.1159 / 000133533 .
