Authors
Juan D Daza, Ylenia Chiari, Emilia Daza‐Herrera, Mayim S Glaberman, Scott Glaberman, Olivia A Heide, Alexandra Herrera‐Martínez, Richard Thomas
Publication date
2023/3
Journal
The Anatomical Record
Volume
306
Issue
3
Pages
688-691
Publisher
John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Description
This New World clade is often referred to as sphaerodactyls (Grant, 1932; Kluge, 1995). Spherodactyls are secretive and elusive (Barbour, 1921; Schwartz, 1973), and because they are unusually small, they are most of the time unknow by locals. Some of them can measure only 25mm (including the tail), making them one of the smallest living amniotes (Hedges & Thomas, 2001; Thomas, 1965). Spherodactyls also occupy a comparable position in the food web as small arthropods due to their diminutive size (Vitt et al., 2005).
While sampling populations from high elevation localities in the cordillera Central and the Yunque massif, as part of an ongoing long-term survey of miniaturized geckos from Puerto Rico (Daza et al., 2019), we discovered an unusual specimen of Sphaerodactylus cf. klauberi with a terminal caudal bifurcation.
Total citations
Scholar articles
JD Daza, Y Chiari, E Daza‐Herrera, MS Glaberman… - The Anatomical Record, 2023