Cryptactites peringueyi (BOULENGER, 1910)
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Cryptactites peringueyi
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| Higher Taxa | Gekkonidae, Gekkota, Sauria, Squamata (lizards: geckos) |
| Subspecies | |
| Common Names | E: Salt Marsh Gecko, Peringuey’s Coastal Leaf-Toed Gecko |
| Synonym | Phyllodactylus peringueyi BOULENGER 1910: 493 Phyllodactylus peringueyi — LOVERIDGE 1947: 240 Phyllodactylus peringueyi — WERMUTH 1965: 142 Phyllodactylus peringueyi — KLUGE 1993 Cryptactites peringueyi — BAUER et al. 1997 Cryptactites peringueyi — HEINICKE et al. 2014 |
| Distribution | Republic of South Africa (along the Kromme River estuary, near Port Elizabeth, Eastern Cape Province) Type locality: Little Namaqualand and Chelsea Point, Port Elizabeth, Cape Province. |
| Reproduction | oviparous |
| Types | Holotype: SAM (South African Museum, Capetown) |
| Diagnosis | Definition (genus). Cryptactites is distinguishable from all other geckos based on the following combination of characters: size small (28 mm max. SVL), with a relatively large but narrow head, a long, pointed snout, cylindrical body and round, tapering tail. Digits are free and bear a single pair of dilated terminal adhesive pads (‘leaf toes’); claws are pres- ent on all digits. Dorsal scalation with rows of prominent keeled tubercles. Preanal pores are absent; but two cloacal spurs are present (more prominent in males). The eye bears a vertical pupil with straight margins. The skull displays no co-ossification with the overlying skin. Nasals are fused; frontal single; parietals partly fused; stapes imperforate; 13–14 scleral ossicles; 12 premaxillary and fewer than 30 dentary teeth; hyoid with second ceratobranchial cartilages. There are 24 presacral vertebrae and two pairs of cloacal bones. The phalangeal formula is 2-3-4-5-3 (manus)/2-3-4- 5-4 (pes); paraphalangeal elements are absent. Cryptactites peringueyi exhibits the following non- homoplastic apomorphic cranial characters: posterior point of jugal bone aligned with the lateral edge of squamosal instead of lateral border of the quadrate (124- 0); frontal bone compact, lacking extensive internal tra- becular bone (134-0); parabasisphenoid – basioccipital fenestra present (253-1, Fig. 22); fenestra ovalis located anterior to the sphenooccipital tubercle (255-1, Fig. 17); sphenooccipital tubercle located posteriorly resulting in a nearly vertically oriented crista tuberalis (271-0, Fig. 17); the splenial forms the wall of the Meckelian canal for more than two thirds the length of the dentary (333-0); articular without a deep fossa on the dorsal or dorsomedial surface of the retroarticular process (364-1); anterior mar- ginal teeth procumbent (380-1, Fig. 17). Among the circum-Indian Ocean leaf-toed geckos, the presence of only 24 presacral vertebrae is unique. Reduc- tions below 25 presacrals are extremely rare in geckos (Wellborn, 1933; Hoffstetter & Gasc, 1969) and have been otherwise confirmed only in Rhoptropus afer among the members of the broader Afro-Malagasy clade to which these leaf-toed geckos belong (Bauer et al., 1996). Cryptactites can be readily distinguished from all other circum-Indian Ocean leaf-toed geckos and all additional leaf-toed genera in Africa based on its minute size and rugose dorsal scalation [HEINICKE et al. 2014]. |
| Comment | Distribution: The single record for Namaqualand is almost certainly in error. Type Species: Phyllodactylus peringueyi BOULENGER 1910 is the type species of the genus Cryptactites BAUER, GOOD & BRANCH 1997. |
| Etymology | Named after Dr. Louis Albert Peringuey (1855-1924), a French entomologist and naturalist. |
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