RE: [Gecko] classification of Goniurosaurus

[Mark Ernst]

I tried to send this message a few times but it didn't came trough. I attached a little picture to it. Maybe that is the problem? I shall place it inside the message. Maybe that will work. Original message:     Hmm ... I always thought that we had G. luii, but now I'm not sure any more. The four bands are not always very obvious in our young, and only slightly orange, but mostly white. Some have 4 bands, some have not. Many are aberrant. We even had one hatched out that had a complete circle on his back, looking somewhat like a bulls eye. "Ofcourse" that one drowned in the incubator :-( Our pair is looking like G. luii I think. Eyes are brightly orange. They have more ore less 4 bands around the body. At least the male has. The female has an aberrant pattern. They are wild caught and obtained in 1998.   Here are pictures of the male, 2 young that just hatched and one older young. Not very best pictures, sorry. The color in the male is normally more purple than in this picture, He is looking quite yellow in this picture what he is rather not. What species do you think they are?     Regards, Isabelle       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.