Tarentola gigas, BRANCOENSIS SCHLEICH, 1984

Vasconcelos, Raquel, Perera, Ana, Geniez, Philippe, Harris, D. James & Carranza, Salvador, 2012, An integrative taxonomic revision of the Tarentola geckos (Squamata, Phyllodactylidae) of the Cape Verde Islands, Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 164 (2), pp. 328-360 : 351-352

TARENTOLA GIGAS BRANCOENSIS SCHLEICH, 1984

( FIGS 1 , 2D 1 , 3 , 5D 1 , 6D 1 , 7D 1 )

Tarentola gigas brancoensis Schleich, 1984: 104 (holotype: ZSM 01.362/78, Branco Islet; paratypes: 02.- 06.362/78, 01.-12.19/82, same data), 1987: 49, 1996: 124; Carranza et al., 2000: 641, 2002: 247; López- Jurado et al., 2005: 101; Frazen & Glaw, 2007: 220.

Tarentola borneensis: Gray, 1845: 165 (part.) (Borneo ex errore pro Branco, following Joger, 1984b); Joger, 1985: 307

Tarentola gigas: Angel, 1937: 1695 (part.); Mateo et al., 1997: 9, 11 (part.)

Tarentola delalandii gigas: Loveridge, 1947: 330 (part.); Greer, 1976: 702 (part.); Schleich, 1980: 147 (part.); Schleich, 1982b: 82 (part.); Schleich & Wuttke, 1983: 83

Tarentola ‘ delalandii ’ gigas: Schleich, 1982a: 246 (part.)

Tarentola borneensis gigas: Joger, 1984b: 100

Tarentola borneensis borneensis: Joger, 1993: 443

Specimens examined: Two voucher specimens (Appendix 1).

Additional material and references: Schleich (1980: 147) refers to ZSMH 362/1978 (unknown islet); Joger (1984b: 100) to BMNH 1946.8.25.79-80 (Branco islet); Schleich (1987: 49) to ZSM 01.362/78; 02.-06.362/78, 01.-12.19/82 (Branco Islet); Frazen & Glaw (2007: 220) to ZSM 362/1978/1 (female, Branco Islet, given as ZSM 01.362/ 78 in the original description), ZSM 362/1978/2-8 (five adults, two juveniles, same data, given as ZSM 02.-06.362/ 78 in the original description), ZSM 19/1982/1-7 (seven individuals, same data, given as ZSM 01.-12.19/ 82 in the original description). Diagnosis: Giant gecko with SVL above 100 mm [maximum SVL 113 mm, 98.0 mm on average ( Schleich, 1987)].

It differs from T. g. gigas by its smaller body mass, by the ratio between the width and length of the fourth toe being generally higher than 1:5, by presenting a lower scale count around midbody (160–195 versus 180–213) and a shorter snout ( Schleich, 1984; Joger, 1984b).

Distribution: Branco Islet, Cape Verde.

Genetic and phylogeographic remarks: See T. gigas , above.

Conservation status: Listed as Endangered and so in need of urgent protection under the criteria of the First Red List of Cape Verde ( Schleich, 1996). The Cape Verde authorities later considered the status of this population as Endangered ( Anonymous, 2002).

Figures

Figure 1. Map of the Cape Verde Islands showing the geographical location (latitudes and longitudes) and altitudes of the islands and the origins of the new Tarentola samples included in the genetic (circles) and morphological (diamonds) analyses (Geographic Coordinate System, Datum WGS 84). Island and taxa colours match the colours used on the network analyses. No specimens were found on Sal.

Figure 2. Phylogenetic relationships of endemic Cape Verde Tarentola taxa and their relatives from the Canary Islands modified from Vasconcelos et al. (2010) based on cytochrome b and 12S rRNA genes. The tree was inferred using maximum likelihood (ML) and GTR+I+G model of sequence evolution (log likelihood = -6468.896) and was rooted using Tarentola americana. Bootstrap support values above 60% for the ML analysis are shown below nodes. Posterior probability (PP) values higher than 95% for the Bayesian analysis are represented by an asterisk (*) and are shown above nodes. Names in bold follow the new taxonomic proposal and non-bold ones the taxonomy accepted in previous recent papers (Carranza et al., 2000; Jesus et al., 2002; Vasconcelos et al., 2010). For further details see Vasconcelos et al. (2010). Characters immediately to the right of island names correspond to the 15 evolutionarily significant units (ESUs) of A, B, C, and D clades recognized in the present work and represented in split green bars. Lines of evidence (in grey): 1, mitochondrial DNA (independent cyt b parsimony networks with a connection limit of 95%; see Appendix 3); 2, nuclear DNA (absence of shared haplotypes in MC1R); 3, morphology (detection of any diagnostic morphological character or a set of a unique combination of characters). Integration approaches (in red) from the most conservative to the most inflationist: ITC stands for integration by total congruence (all lines of evidence should be congruent), IPC stands for integration by partial congruence, retained in the present study (at least two lines of evidence are necessary); IC stands for integration by cumulation (one line of evidence is sufficient). Species are represented in split red bars and subspecies in yellow.

Figure 3. Parsimony networks corresponding to the PDC, ACM4 and MC1R nDNA sequence variation in Tarentola from the Cape Verde Islands. Lines represent a mutational step, circles haplotypes and dots missing haplotypes. The size of circles is proportional to the number of haplotypes and colours to the number of individuals. The dotted circles represent the most probable ancestral haplotype. Samples from the same island are similarly coloured but with different tonalities for different taxa. For correspondences of sample and location codes see Appendix 1.

Figure 5. Magnified dorsal tubercles of Tarentola species of the Cape Verde Islands.

Figure 6. Typical dorsal patterns of Tarentola species of the Cape Verde Islands (adapted from Joger, 1993).

Figure 7. Photographs of the dorsal and lateral views of Tarentola of the Cape Verde Islands. A1, T. boavistensis; A2, T. bocagei; A3, T. fogoensis; A4, T. darwini; B1, T. substituta; B2, T. raziana; B3, T. caboverdiana; C, T. nicolauensis; D1, T. gigas (T. gigas brancoensis on the left and T. gigas gigas on the right); D2, T. rudis; D3, T. protogigas protogigas; D4, T. p. hartogi from Brava Island; D5, T. p. hartogi from Rombos Islets; D6, T. maioensis.