First record of the invasive Hemidactylus mabouia ( Moreau de Jonnès , 1818 ) ( Squamata , Gekkonidae ) , in the dry Chaco , Argentina

The invasive Hemidactylus mabouia (Moreau de Jonnès, 1818) is one of the most widespread introduced species of reptiles, being present in the New World at least 500 years ago. In this work, we report for the first time, the presence of the invasive gecko H. mabouia in the dry Chaco, a biogeographic region included in the Gran Chaco Sudamericano. We collected 3 individuals in an urban zone at Las Lomitas, Patiño department, Formosa Province, Argentina. This new record extends the distribution range of this introduced species by nearly 300 km (in a straight line) from Formosa city, the nearest point previously reported.


Introduction
The invasive Hemidactylus mabouia is one of the most widespread introduced species of reptiles (Hughes et al. 2015).It inhabits in many countries of Africa (including several Seychelles islands), the Caribbean; in the state of Florida (USA), on Madeira (Portugal), Central America (Costa Rica, Honduras, Mexico, and Panama), and South America (Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, French Guiana, Guyana, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname, Venezuela and Uruguay) (Uetz et al. 2017).The species inhabits natural anthropic impacted areas or urban centers (Vanzolini 1978, Baldo et al. 2008), being reported in some invasive Hemidactylus, the ability to displace native species (Hanley et al. 1998, Rivas Fuenmayor et al. 2005, Dame and Petren 2006).
The biogeographic pattern and colonization from Africa to the New world was study by Carranza and Arnold (2006), which based on DNA sequences suggest the presence of H. mabouia in the new world at least 500 years ago.In Argentina, was reported for the first time by Williams (1988), from an urban area in Buenos Aires city, although misidentified as Hemidactylus turcicus (see Baldo et al. 2008).Later on, the presence of H. mabouia was described for Iguazu National Park, Misiones province (Genise and Montanelli 1991), and successive reports indicate the presence of this taxon in Chaco, Corrientes, and Formosa provinces (Federico and Cacivio 2000, Alvarez et al. 2002, 2009, Baldo et al. 2008).

Methods
Three juvenile specimens were collected during a field trip in austral spring 2017.The collected specimens were euthanized with Pentothal Sodium injection, fixed in 10% formalin, and preserved in 70% alcohol.Voucher specimens have been deposited in the herpetological collection of the Laboratorio de Genetica Evolutiva (LGE), Instituto de Biología Subtropical (CONICET-UNaM), Posadas city, Misiones province, Argentina.Identification.Specimens were identified following Kluge (1969), Hoogmoed (1973) and Avila-Pires (1995) by the lamellae under the fourth toe, shape of the pupil, number of supralabial and infra labial scales (Fig. 2).

Discussion
The new report is the first record for the invasive species H. mabouia in the dry Chaco, a biogeographic region included in the Gran Chaco Sudamericano (Naumann 2006).The presence of H. mabouia in this region, which is characterized by the presence of multiple endemism (Szumik et al. 2012), represents a potential problem for conservation of fauna.As was previously mentioned, some Hemidactylus species share the ability of displacing native fauna (Hanley et al. 1998, Dame and Petren 2006, Rivas Fuenmayor et al. 2005), which suggests the need to carry out a greater survey of the fauna present in the dry Chaco and the potential threats to the conservation of the native fauna.This record extends the distribution range of H. mabouia by nearly 300 kilometers (in a straight line) from Formosa city, the nearest point previously reported (Alvarez et al. 2009).

Figure 1 .
Figure 1.Distribution map of H. mabouia in Argentina.The blue solid circle indicates the new record.Red solid squares indicate previous records.The light yellow shaded area corresponds to the dry Chaco biogeographic region.