Hemidactylus mabouia (Moreau de Jonnes , 1818)

Uchoa, Lucas Rafael, Delfim, Fagner Ribeiro, Mesquita, Daniel Oliveira, Colli, Guarino Rinaldi, Garda, Adrian Antonio & Guedes, Thais B., 2022, Lizards (Reptilia: Squamata) from the Caatinga, northeastern Brazil: Detailed and updated overview, Vertebrate Zoology 72, pp. 599-659 : 599

Hemidactylus mabouia (Moreau de Jonnes, 1818)

Figs 3.7 and 13

Type locality

Antilles, restricted to St. Vincent Island, Lesser Antilles, by Stejneger (1904).

Distribution.

In the Caatinga it is recorded in the states of Alagoas, Bahia, Ceará, Minas Gerais, Paraíba, Pernambuco, Piauí, Rio Grande do Norte, and Sergipe. It is widespread in the Caatinga and occurs along all ecoregions (Table 1 ; Appendix S3). Distributed in low to high elevation areas (18-1,085 m a.s.l.), annual mean temperature 20 to 27°C, and average annual rainfall between 412 and 1,573 mm.

Commentary.

In South America, H. mabouia is considered an invasive species that was originally introduced either carried by ships used to transport slaves in the 19th century ( Goeldi 1902; Vanzolini 1968) or via "natural rafts" (i.e., logs or masses of floating vegetation) ( Kluge 1969). Diet based mainly on arthropods, being Araneae , Coleoptera and Formicidae the most representative items ( Albuquerque et al. 2013), also with records of cannibalism ( Bonfiglio et al. 2006). Oviparous, the female usually lays two eggs at a time ( Vitt 1992).

Figures

Figure 3. Lizards recorded in the Caatinga region. 3.1 Norops brasiliensis; 3.2 Norops fuscoauratus; 3.3 Diploglossus lessonae; 3.4 Ophiodes striatus; 3.5 Hemidactylus agrius; 3.6 Hemidactylus brasilianus; 3.7 Hemidactylus mabouia; and 3.8 Lygodactylus klugei. Photograph credits: Mauro Teixeira (3.1), Marco A. Freitas (3.2), Daniel Mesquita (3.5, 3.7), Adrian Garda (3.3, 3.4, 3.6, 3.8)