Shark Bay geckos

moloch

moloch

New member
Last November, my son and I went on an adventure trip through Western Australia. We flew from Sydney to Perth, picked up our hire car at the airport and then began what would turn into an 8500km drive. We travelled north to Shark Bay, Kalbarri, Exmouth, the Great Sandy Desert near Broome and then went inland to Karijini National Park. These areas are rich with gecko species and I will post a number of photos these lovely lizards. This first report will cover Shark Bay.

First, here are a couple of photos of Shark Bay near the Monkey Mia resort where we camped. This area has an interesting blend of white coastal sands and the red sands from the interior.

habitat.jpg


habitat2.jpg



I believe this to be a White-spotted Ground Gecko (Diplodactylus alboguttatus). These are photos of both individuals that we found.

white-spottedgroundgecko1.jpg


white-spottedgroundgecko2.jpg



I have had trouble identifying this gecko since it does not look the same as that illustrated in my field guide. I think that it probably is an Ornate Gecko (Diplodactylus ornatus). We saw two of these. What do others think it might be?

ornategecko2.jpg


ornategecko1.jpg



This species I cannot recognize at all. We saw several of these geckos. Does anyone have suggestions? The head shape reminds me of a Klug’s Gecko (Diplodactylus klugei) but the pattern is different to the illustrations and photographs that I have seen.

unk2.jpg


unk1.jpg



Western Spiny-tailed Geckos (Strophurus strophurus) were the most numerous gecko on the road with more than 10 encountered.

spiny-tailedgecko1a.jpg



The beautiful Smooth Knob-tailed Gecko (Nephrurus levis occidentalis) was also common with about 10 observed.

knob-tailedgecko2.jpg
 
brandon f.

brandon f.

New member
i can't help with the id of any of them, but i will say i wish i had oneday to go to australia and collect animals to bring home. awesome pics. thank you for posting them.
 
Hazpat

Hazpat

New member
the ones you say look like klugei also kinda look like granarensis, are they from that area?
 
J

Jerry Peebles

New member
I'm not 100% sure, but I think you would find pulcher if you were on the west side of Shark Bay (around Monkey Mia) and klugei on the east side of the bay. Did you see any Strophurus spinigerus in that area? If so, did they have white eyes?

Jerry.
 
moloch

moloch

New member
Thanks, everyone, for their comments and help with the identification of the gecko that I could not recognize.

Jerry,
I think that you may be correct about the id of the "problem" gecko. Where did you find such detailed information regarding the distribution of klugei and pulcher? Sounds great and I would like to read more.

I did a quick websearch for photos of this species and found a photo of D. pulcher that is much like the geckos that I photographed.
http://www.animals.uwa.edu.au/latest/2004/2004jun02

This photo is very unlike the photos of D. pulcher that I have seen elsewhere. I had never considered D. pulcher since the photos that I previously encountered were of animals with very different patterns such as these:
http://www.museum.wa.gov.au/faunabase/prod/index.htm (follow links to reptiles, geckos, "Beautiful Gecko")
or
http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/~varanus/foraging.html

Here is yet another very different example of D. pulcher.
http://members.iinet.net.au/~bush/pulcher.html

I wonder if this is just another highly-variable species or whether more work remains regarding its taxonomy.


Hazpat,
I had considered D. granarensis rex for this gecko as well, however, that race would be out-of-range at Shark Bay.

See http://www.museum.wa.gov.au/faunabase/prod/index.htm.


Uropl@tus,
My son and I were there for 16 days. We did lots of driving but mostly through the day when it was 40C. It was not hard, then, to sit in an air-conditioned car. We had a few 1200km+ days, but most of the days were not too bad.


tank0204,
As the others have indicated, all reptiles and amphibians are protected in Australia. You can take photos but you cannot collect.
 
moloch

moloch

New member
Jerry,

I forgot to answer your Strophurus spinigerus question. I did not see any of this species at Shark Bay but did see large numbers at Kalbarri. I will post photos soon. The pupils were fully dilated in my photos so it is hard to say what the iris colour actually was. The bits that I can see are pale but I cannot determine if they are grey.
 
freddy81

freddy81

New member
:D

Hello Yes I think so to...pleace send some more photos....and yes I hope you get your on section here in geckosunlimited...=)
 
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