Spotted Leaf-toed Gecko Hemidactylus maculatus is a species of large gecko

Gecko

Geckos are lizards belonging to the infraorder Gekkota, found in warm climates throughout the world. They range from 1.6 cm to 60 cm....

 found in the Western Ghats

Western Ghats

The Western Ghats, Western Ghauts or the Sahyādri is a mountain range along the western side of India. It runs north to south along the western edge of the Deccan Plateau, and separates the plateau from a narrow coastal plain along the Arabian Sea. The Western Ghats block rainfall to the Deccan...

 of India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

 and in parts of Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka is a country off the southern coast of the Indian subcontinent. Known until 1972 as Ceylon , Sri Lanka is an island surrounded by the Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait, and lies in the vicinity of India and the...

.

Description

Head large, oviform; snout longer than the distance between the eye and the ear-opening, 1.25 the diameter of the orbit; forehead concave; canthus rostralis swollen; ear-opening large, oval. Body and limbs moderate. Digits moderately dilated, free, inner well developed: infradigital lamellae almost perfectly straight, 9 to 11 under the inner digit, 12 or 13 under the median. Head covered anteriorly with convex granular scales, smaller in the frontal concavity, posteriorly with minute granules intermixed with round tubercles; rostral subtetragonal, not twice as broad as deep, with median cleft above; nostril pierced between the rostral, the first labial, and three or four nasals; 10 to 12 upper and 9 or 10 lower labials, mental large, triangular or pentagonal, twice as long as the adjacent labials; two pairs of chin-shields, the inner the larger, elongate, in contact behind the mental. Upper surfaces with minute, granular scales intermixed with moderate-sized trihedral, more or less strongly keeled tubercles, the largest not measuring more than one third the diameter of the eye; they are arranged very irregularly on the back, in about 20 longitudinal series. Abdominal scales smooth, roundish, imbricate. Male with a long series of femoral pores, 19 to 25 on each side, interrupted on the preanal region. Tail rounded, tapering, depressed; above with small irregular keeled scales, and 6 or 8 longitudinal series of large trihedral tubercles; beneath with a median series of transversely enlarged plates. Brown above, with darker spots, generally confluent into transverse undulating bands on the back; two more or less distinct dark streaks on each side of the head, passing through the eye; lower surfaces dirty white.
From snout to vent 4.5 inches; tail 5.

Distribution

Southern India and Sri Lanka.
Race hunae: India (Malabar, Tirunelveli, Salem, near Madras), Sri Lanka.
Type locality: restricted to Bombay by Smith 1935.

External links

• http://www.uroplatus.com/photopage/images/Hemidactylus%20maculatus%2002.jpg
• http://www.uroplatus.com/photopage/images/Hemidactylus%20maculatus%2003.jpg