Range extension and distribution of the invasive Moreau’s Tropical House Gecko, Hemidactylus mabouia (Moreau de Jonnès, 1818) (Squamata: Gekkonidae), in Suriname

Rawien Jairam; Christian d'Orgeix; Christian d'Orgeix; Akira Harris

doi:10.15560/12.5.1978

Check List 12(5): e19580, doi: 10.15560/12.5.1978

Range extension and distribution of the invasive Moreau’s Tropical House Gecko, Hemidactylus mabouia (Moreau de Jonnès, 1818) (Squamata: Gekkonidae), in Suriname

Rawien Jairam^‡, Christian A. d'Orgeix^§, Christian H. d'Orgeix, Akira Harris^§

‡ Anton de Kom University, Suriname§ Virginia State University, United States of America

Corresponding author: Rawien Jairam ( rawien_2000@yahoo.com )

This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Citation: Jairam R, d'Orgeix C, d'Orgeix C, Harris A (2016) Range extension and distribution of the invasive Moreau’s Tropical House Gecko, Hemidactylus mabouia (Moreau de Jonnès, 1818) (Squamata: Gekkonidae), in Suriname. Check List 12(5): 1978. https://doi.org/10.15560/12.5.1978

Abstract

We document a population of Moreau’s Tropical House Gecko, Hemidactylus mabouia (Moreau de Jonnès, 1818), at a remote Amerindian village, Kwamalasamutu, Suriname, South America. This village is approximately 370 km southwest of the northern coastal region where the presence of H. mabouia was previously recorded. Numerous individuals and a gravid female provide evidence of a viable population. The morphological characters of the two female specimens examined fall within the range of characters recorded from African and Ascension Island specimens. Due to its overland inaccessibility, we believe that colonization occurred anthropogenically through air or boat transport from the coastal region.

Keywords

invasive species; lizard; first report; anthropogenic colonization; South America