Spotted leaf-toed gecko, Giant spotted gecko
Hemidactylus maculatus, also known as the spotted leaf-toed gecko or giant spotted gecko, is a species of large gecko found in the Western Ghats of India and in parts of Sri Lanka.
An insectivore is a carnivorous plant or animal that eats insects. An alternative term is entomophage, which also refers to the human practice of e...
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TerrestrialTerrestrial animals are animals that live predominantly or entirely on land (e.g., cats, ants, snails), as compared with aquatic animals, which liv...
Oviparous animals are female animals that lay their eggs, with little or no other embryonic development within the mother. This is the reproductive...
Precocial species are those in which the young are relatively mature and mobile from the moment of birth or hatching. Precocial species are normall...
Arboreal locomotion is the locomotion of animals in trees. In habitats in which trees are present, animals have evolved to move in them. Some anima...
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starts withHead 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.
Southern India and Sri Lanka.Race hunae : India (Malabar, Tirunelveli, Salem, near Madras), Sri Lanka.Type locality: restricted to Bombay by Smith 1935.