Hello Erik, Sunday, July 14, 2002, 12:17:07 AM, you wrote: EL> First off, I believe the name litchtenfelderi was changed to EL> murphyi in 2000 by Grismer. If this is correct, shouldn�t they be EL> classified as Goniurosaurus murphyi hainanensis ?
It's the other way around. Grismer synonymized G. murphyi with G. lichtenfelderi. The main reasons are that Orlov and Darevsky (1999), in their description of G. murphyi, did not (1)examine, first-hand, G. lichtenfelderi specimens from the places they occur (Hainan Island, China and Iles de Norway, Vietnam), (2)search key literature on G. lichtenfelderi and G. hainanensis, and (3) they were unaware that the picture in Zhao and Adler's book was the newly described G. luii NOT G. lichtenfelderi as labeled. So, in a nutshell, Orlov and Darevsky described their species as distinct and different from G. luii (which they thought was G. lichtenfelderi since G. luii had not been described yet) and differences between G. murphyi and G. lichtenfelderi were not as great as they thought but since they did not examine (first-hand) specimens or key literature, they were unaware of this. EL> My second question is if Goniurosaurus lichtenfelderi EL> lichtenfelderi is the same as G. Murphyi (formerly EL> lichentenfelderi) and Goniurosaurus Murphyi is just a shorter EL> version of saying (spelling it) The first name used has priority. Since G. lichtenfelderi is older than G. murphyi it is the name that should be used. EL> To my knowledge G. Murphyi is black with white bands. G. M. EL> hainanensis looks similar to G. Araneus. Anyone know of any EL> distinct differences between Goniurosaurus Murphy (lichtenfelderi) EL> hainanensis and Goniurosaurus araneus such as scale counts or EL> something? G. lichtenfelderi can be easily differentiated from G. araneus and G. luii because G. lichtenfelderi has only 3 body bands anterior to the hind limbs (including the nuchal loop). G. araneus and G. luii have 4 body bands anterior to the hind limbs (again, including the nuchal loop). G. araneus and G. luii can be told apart by the following: G. luii - Has granular dorsal scales, yellow to red irises, and narrow body bands. G. araneus - has elongate dorsal scales, brown irises, and wide boy bands. There are some other differentiating characteristics (such as juvenile G. luii's orange body bands compared to juvenile G. araneus' white body bands, G. araneus lacks the enlarged row of supraorbital tuburcules that G. luii posses, etc...) but these are the easiest ways to tell the two apart. I hope this helps. -- Best regards, Tony mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] ########################################################################### THE GLOBAL GECKO ASSOCIATION LISTSERV WebSite: www.gekkota.com Archive: [EMAIL PROTECTED]/ The GGA takes no responsibility for the contents of these postings. ###########################################################################
