Hemidactylus frenatus Schlegel

Hemidactylus frenatus Schlegel (Common house gecko) Specimens analysed: two males (CEAC 10, CEAC 11), one female (CEAC 9). Distribution: worldwide in tropical and subtropical regions. The species has been introduced into Mexico, where its presence was first reported in 1940 by Taylor and then by Burt and Myers (1942). Subspecies: Not described. However the species is chromosomally polytypic (see below). Karyotype: the chromosomal complement of this species is variable with 2 n = 40 and 2 n = 46. However the karyotype with 2 n = 46 clearly belongs to H. bowringii (see Kupriyanova and Darevski 1989). Sporadic presence of triploid populations with 3 n = 60 has been found in Vietnam (Darevsky et al. 1984). The specimens from Chamela conform to the most common karyotype with 2 n = 40 (Fig. 5). This karyotype is composed of seven pairs of biarmed chromosomes (three large pairs and four pairs of small chromomomes). The remaining chromosomes are telocentrics. This is the first description of the karyotype of this species in the New World. DNA taxonomy: the rDNA 16 S has been studied in specimens from Madagascar by Vences et al. (2004) and in one single specimen from Papua New Guinea (Whiting et al. 2003). The sequence comparison shows that the specimen studied here is almost identical to the one from Oceania (sequence divergence: 0.2%) but differs more from those of Madagascar (sequence divergence: 0.8���3.1%). Oceania is believed to represent the centre of origin of the species from which it spreads worldwide due to human movements. The close relationships among the two haplotypes agree with a recent arrival of the species in Mexico. In fact, H. frenatus was probably introduced during the Spaniard dominium of Mexico. The importation likely dates to the time when Spanish galleons carried trade goods between Acapulco and the Philippines (Taylor 1940).
Published as part of Castiglia, Riccardo, Annesi, Flavia, Bezerra, Alexandra M. R., Garc��a, Andr��s & Flores-Villela, Oscar, 2010, Cytotaxonomy and DNA taxonomy of lizards (Squamata, Sauria) from a tropical dry forest in the Chamela-Cuixmala Biosphere Reserve on the coast of Jalisco, Mexico, pp. 1-29 in Zootaxa 2508 on pages 12-13, DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.196005
{"references":["Burt, C. E. & Myers, G. S. (1942) Neotropical lizards in the collection of the Natural History Museum of Stanford University. Stanford University Publications, University Series, Biological Sciences, 8, 273 - 324.","Kupriyanova, L. A. & Darevski, I. S. (1989). Karyotypic Uniformity in east Asian populations of Hemidactylus frenatus. Journal of Herpetology, 23, 294 - 296.","Darevsky, I. S., Kupriyanova, L. A. & Roshchin, V. V. (1984) A new all-female triploid species of gecko and karyological data on the bisexual Hemidactylus frenatus from Vietnam. Journal of Herpetology, 18, 277 - 284.","Vences, M., Wanke, S., Vieites, D. R., Branch, W. R., Glaw, F. & Meyer, A. (2004) Natural colonization or introduction? Phylogeographical relationships and morphological differentiation of house geckos (Hemidactylus) from Madagascar. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 83, 115 - 130.","Whiting, A. S., Bauer, A. M. & Sites Jr., J. W. (2003) Phylogenetic relationships and limb loss in sub-Saharan African scincine lizards (Squamata: Scincidae), Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution, 29, 582 - 598.","Taylor, E. H. (1940) Mexican snakes of the genus Typhlops. University of Kansas Science Bulletin, 26, 441 - 444."]}