Cyrtodactylus variegatus, (BLYTH, 1859)

Grismer, L. Lee, Wood, Perry L., Jr., Thura, Myint Kyaw, Zin, Thaw, Quah, Evan S. H., Murdoch, Matthew L., Grismer, Marta S., Lin, Aung, Kyaw, Htet & Lwin, Ngwe, 2018, Twelve new species of Cyrtodactylus Gray (Squamata: Gekkonidae) from isolated limestone habitats in east-central and southern Myanmar demonstrate high localized diversity and unprecedented microendemism, Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 182, pp. 862-959 : 952

CYRTODACTYLUS VARIEGATUS ( BLYTH, 1859)

Type locality: ‘ Moulmein [=Mawlamyine, Mon State]’. Holotype: ZSI 6188.

Remarks: Blyth (1859) ambiguously reported the type locality of Cyrtodactylus variegatus to be Moulmein (=Mawlamyine, Mon State). In reporting on a second specimen, Annandale (1913) noted that the type locality was probably inland from Mawlamyine in the Dawna Hills, approximately 75 km to the east in the Amherst District (=Mawlamyine District). Blyth’s (1859) description of the colour pattern of the holotype and the illustration of the second specimen in Annandale (1913: Plate 16)—which according to Smith (1935) ‘agrees well with Blyth’s description’—generally matches the colour pattern of C. dammathetensis sp. nov., C. welpyanensis sp. nov., C. linnoensis sp. nov., C. sadanensis sp. nov. and C. yathepyanensis sp. nov. although it is most similar to the former from Dammathet Cave, approximately 50 km to the west of the Dawna Hills. Like C. variegatus , the dorsal bands in C. dammathetensis sp. nov. are jagged and the nuchal loop has a tendency to be divided medially. It is clear from Blyth’s (1859) description of the holotype and more importantly from Smith’s (1935) more detailed redescription that the specimen is an adult male ( SVL = 71 mm) with a ‘continuous series of 32 preanal and femoral [= femoroprecloacal] pores’ (the key of Bauer [2003] erroneously reports C. variegatus as having only precloacal pores). Of the species in the Indo-Chinese clade, only C. dammathetensis sp. nov. has continuous femoroprecloacal pores that number 45 in the holotype ( LSUHC 12862)—much higher than that reported by Smith (1935). We hypothesize that molecular and additional morphological data will place C. variegatus in the sinyineensis group. Preparations to survey the Dawna Hills are being made. Cox et al. (1998) stated that C. variegatus inhabited caves in mountainous regions in northern and western Thailand but could give no specific locality as he did not work on these sections of the pocket guide in which these data are reported (M. J. Cox, unpubl. data). The data from this report were simply followed by Chan-ard et al. (2015). The photograph in Cox et al. (1998: 87) purported to be C. variegatus is actually C. dumnuii Bauer, Kunya, Sumontha, Niyomwan, Pauwels, Chanhome, & Kunya , likely from its only known locality in Chang Mai Province. Thus, to date, C. variegatus is possibly known only from the Dawna Hills.