Tarentola gigas
Creators: name: Vasconcelos, Raquel
name: Perera, Ana
name: Geniez, Philippe
name: Harris, D. James
name: Carranza, Salvador
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2012
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Chordata
Reptilia
Squamata
Phyllodactylidae
Tarentola
Tarentola gigas

description: TARENTOLA GIGAS (BOCAGE, 1875)
Diagnosis: Giant gecko with SVL above 100 mm [maximum SVL 155 mm (Bocage, 1896), 103.6 mm on average; (Schleich, 1987)]; eye/ear opening ratio 1.5– 2.0 (Schleich, 1987); ear–eye/eye–snout distance ratio slightly ³ 1 (Schleich, 1984, 1987). Eight to 12 supralabials and seven to nine infralabials (Schleich, 1984); eight to 12 enlarged lamellae under the 4th finger; 160–195 midbody scales (Joger, 1984b); flatter apical dorsal tubercles (Fig. 5D 1) with 16 transverse rows (Schleich, 1984); several enlarged tubercles between the eye and the ear opening. Grey dorsal or olive greyish pattern with a broad, light well-defined middorsal line with generally five large saddle-like marks (Figs 6D 1, 7D 1); cream ventral parts, yellow on the lower parts; big dark spots on the labials, creating an alternating light and dark pattern; eye iris dark grey with a typical vertical light area around the pupil, joining the upper and lower parts of the eye which are also light.
It differs from other Tarentola from the same clade D, T. ‘ rudis ’ from Santiago, Fogo, Brava, Rombos, and Maio, besides from its size, by the absence of a keel on dorsal tubercles. Unlike all other Cape Verdean Tarentola, strong vocalisations play a clear role in social behaviour (Schleich, 1982b, 1987). This species avoids vertical surfaces presumably due to its weight, and presents a robust body with typical extreme fat storage (Schleich, 1987).
Distribution: Raso and Branco Islets, Cape Verde.
Genetic and phylogeographic remarks: Tarentola gigas is monophyletic in the mtDNA tree from Figure 2. Genetic divergence with other taxa within clade D is higher than among taxa within clade B, although lower than among members of clade A: D1–D2, D1–D3, D1–D4, D1–D5, and D1–D6 p- dist (cyt b) = 2.4 ± 0.8, 2.8 ± 0.9, 2.6 ± 0.9, 2.8 ± 0.9, and 3.9 ± 1.0%, respectively (Table 5). Most of the Snn test values for PDC, ACM4, and MC1R are not significant among this clade (Appendix 5). According to the presently selected protocol of integration (IPC), a minimum of two lines of evidence differentiate T. gigas from all the other Tarentola from Cape Verde except T. protogigas from which it differs only in morphology (Fig. 2). Consequently, it is considered a different species, although not fulfilling the rule in respect to T. protogigas, due to several ecological, behavioural and geographical differences (see Discussion).
The two subspecies, T. g. gigas and T. g. brancoensis, are not reciprocally monophyletic (Fig. 2) and the level of genetic divergence is very low, p- dist (cyt b) = 0.2 ± 0.2% (data not shown). Only one of the three lines of evidence (morphology) differentiates the two island populations. Consequently, according to the IPC protocol, these are considered distinct subspecies (Figs 2, 3 and Appendix 3).
description: Published as part of 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, pp. 328-360 in Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 164 (2) on pages 350-351, DOI: 10.1111/j.1096-3642.2011.00768.x, http://zenodo.org/record/5406490