Cnemaspis argus Dring, 1979

Grismer, Lee, Wood, Perry L., Anuar, Shahrul, Riyanto, Awal, Ahmad, Norhayati, Muin, Mohd A., Sumontha, Montri, Grismer, Jesse L., Onn, Chan Kin, Quah, Evan S. H. & Pauwels, Olivier S. A., 2014, Systematics and natural history of Southeast Asian Rock Geckos (genus Cnemaspis Strauch, 1887) with descriptions of eight new species from Malaysia, Thailand, and Indonesia, Zootaxa 3880 (1), pp. 1-147 : 62-63

Cnemaspis argus Dring, 1979

Argus Rock Gecko

Fig. 30

Holotype. BM 1974.4911 . Type locality: “ 790 m on the east ridge of Gunung Lawit”, Terengganu, Peninsular Malaysia.

Diagnosis. Maximum SVL 65.2 mm; eight or nine supralabials; eight or nine infralabials; keeled ventral scales; 6–10 pore-bearing precloacal scales; 26–32 paravertebral tubercles; tubercles not linearly arranged, present on flanks; tubercles absent from lateral caudal furrows; no ventrolateral caudal tubercles, lateral row of caudal tubercles present; caudal tubercles not encircling tail; subcaudals keeled, no enlarged median scale row; 1–4 postcloacal tubercles on each side of tail base; no enlarged femoral or subtibial scales; subtibials keeled; no enlarged submetatarsal scales on first toe; 31–35 subdigital fourth toe lamellae; distinct black and white bands on tail (Tables 6,7).

Color pattern ( Fig. 30 ). Dorsal ground color greyish yellow; interorbital region green; yellow markings on head; paired, black, paravertebral, subelliptically shaped blotches extending from nape to tail and transforming into black bands; large patches of yellow tubercles and short transverse bars on flanks; limbs bearing faded, alternating, dark and light bands; non-regenerated tail bearing black and white bands; all ventral surfaces dull-white.

Distribution. Cnemaspis argus is known from Gunung Lawit ( Dring 1979) and newly reported here from Gunung Tebu, Terengganu 10 km to the north along the same mountain range ( Fig. 3 ).

Natural history. Dring (1979) reported Cnemaspis argus to occur at 790 m in elevation in primary forest from Gunung Lawit and Grismer (2011a) considered it an upland endemic that would probably never be seen again because the trail up to Gunung Lawit had become overgrown and lost. However, we did find additional populations from the base of Gunung Lawit at 230 m in elevation and on Gunung Tebu from 40 m in elevation at Hutan Lipur Lata Belatan up to 750 m near the peak. All lizards were seen on large granite rocks within the forest ( Fig. 30 ). These data indicate that C. argus is not an upland endemic but a microhabitat specialist restricted to granite rocks wherever they may occur within its range. During the day, lizards remain wary and occur on the shady, vertical or inverted surfaces. They are in dark in overall coloration and difficult to approach. During the evening hours, lizards are much lighter in color and far less wary, tending to venture farther out onto the open areas of the boulders where they appear generally inactive.

Relationships. Cnemaspis argus is most closely related to the sister species C. karsticola and C. perhentianensis ( Fig. 2 ).

Material examined. Malaysia: Terengganu, Gunung Lawit BM 1974.4910 – 11 (type series; photographs LSUDPC 2276–78 ), LSUHC 8304 ; Gunung Tebu LSUHC 10834–35 , 10858–59 .

Figures

FIGURE 2. Maximum-likelihood phylogram (–InL 73957.608688) of the species of the genus Cnemaspis with Bayesian posterior probabilities (BPP) and maximum-likelihood (ML) bootstrap values, respectively based on the concatenated 3 gene dataset. Black circles are nodes supported by BBP and ML values greater than 0.95 and 70, respectively. Gray circles are nodes supported only by ML values greater than 70. White circles are nodes supported only by BPP values greater than 0.95. The distribution maps on the right delimit the ranges of the four major clades.

FIGURE 3. Distribution of the species and species groups in the Ca Mau and Northern Sunda clades. Stars indicate type localities.

FIGURE 30. Left: microhabitat of Cnemaspis argus on Gunung Lawit, Terengganu, Peninsular Malaysia. Upper right: adult male (LSUDPC 6564) from Gunung Tebu, Terengganu, Peninsular Malaysia in the light color pattern phase. Photographs by LLG. Lower right: adult female (LSUDPC 6390) from Gunung Tebu in the dark color pattern phase. Photograph by ESHQ.