[Roegbyaj]

Hello，I live in China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.My English is not good so I use translation software to exchange, so there may be some syntax errors.

I like the Gekko gecko , and keep a number of.Our local produce a kind of Gecko.We call it " hui ban ge jie " It means " gray spots Gekko gecko ". I would to know some taxonomic information about this species. China's scientists have only a small amount of research conducted on this species(I asked one of my herpetologist friend but he said he had not heard gray spots Gekko gecko).

Now I keep a few " gray spots Gecko " and G.g.gecko.According to the information I can find that it is still considered Gecko gecko,so I now call them "Gekko gecko ssp 'Rock' "because they don't like G.g.gecko habitat in the forest, they live in Karst rock hill.

I posted some of my pictures want to be helped

I did some comparison chart about Gekko gecko ssp 'Rock' and G.g.gecko

A female G.g.gecko and a female G.g.ssp 'Rock' .G.g.ssp 'Rock' have a cold tone body color.

[Roegbyaj]

G.g.ssp 'Rock' have a "collapsible power", if you touch it, it will physically change a flat - G.g.gecko could not do like that.

And G.g.ssp 'Rock' have a flat head,I think this is in order to adapt to life in the crevice.

[Roegbyaj]

G.g.ssp"Rock" 's particles are much smaller than G.g.gecko's

[Riverside Reptiles]

Good thread. There's some pretty obvious differences between those two geckos. I'm curious how common the "rock" geckos are and if they all exhibit the same difference from normal tokay as this one does?
By the way, your translator works quite well and is easy to understand.
Thanks for posting and I'm looking forward to seeing more discussion on this thread.

[Roegbyaj]

Yes, they all have such features, which live in the karst Rock Hill, in northern Vietnam and southern China.

For the purpose of Chinese medicine because they were caught, so I know the medical books in the fifteenth century, recorded them on.

And the author also distinguishes between "rock" geckos and Gecko, in fact, he considered that Gecko is a fake. So I think people will understand them in ancient times.

[Roegbyaj]

"rock" geckos will not be like the Gecko, as they are more ferocious, but he will not bite you in your near it or touch it (Gecko will do), they tried to run away or to change a flat body makes you difficult to grasp them. If you try to grab him, he bite, but bite is more powerful than Gecko, in fact, they are more sensitive than the Gecko

[Roegbyaj]

An interesting pattern, "Sword in the Stone," most of the "rock" geckos have similar patterns

[Ophidiophile]

This IS a good thread. I had to look up where the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region is and found it's south central China:


According to McKeown and Zaworski (1997) Tokays (i.e., Gekko gecko) occur in "southern China" then range into "southeast Asia" (presumably Laos, Vietnam, Thailand, etc) and then into Indonesia. Obviously, it's hard to tell much based on photos, but those animals actually look a lot like some Indonesian Tokays I've seen (maybe with some smithi influence as well, but of course it's never been clear to me that smithi is really valid). The habitat differences are interesting and undoubtedly account for some of the overt minor morphological differences.

I suppose I could totally hijack this thread and get into a debate about what actually constitutes enough difference to make closely related animals different species. The truth is there are at least 3 different definitions of species and adherence by scientists to one or another is largely a matter of personal preference and philosophy (is the world composed of variants of fundamentally similar "kinds" or of a multitude of fundamentally different "kinds"). The first tend to be "lumpers" and the second "splitters". Ask a lumper what the Guangxi karst geckos are and you'll be told a Tokay; ask a splitter and it'll probably be given a different species name based on the morphological differences (and genetic ones if there are any).

For now, I'd probably call them something like Gekko gecko 'Guangxi variant'.

[Ophidiophile]

Darn! I just realized that the picture of yours that I was looking at for comparison was actually a picture of G. gecko gecko that you posted. There obviously are some superficial differences between that one and the 'rock' ssp. picture that you posted.

Still I think a subspecific designation may be warranted but probably not a full species difference (but of course I feel the same about smithi!)

This really is a great thread though and those are some very nice comparison pictures you posted (now that I realize which are which! )

[Roegbyaj]

Yes, he looks like a hybrid bred from Gekko smithi and Gekko gecko.But they are a separate population.