They scouted beneath rocks in the wilderness in the Eastern Ghats for three long years. The efforts have finally paid off for a team of scientists which recently rediscovered an enigmatic lizard species which was believed to have become extinct.
The lizard – Jeypore ground gecko or Geckoella jeyporensis – was recently spotted in Andhra Pradesh and Odisha after 135 years. The scientists first set out in search of the lizard species in 2010. Described as a beautiful Indian lizard, the Jeypore ground gecko has orangey-brown dorsal side with large, brown blotches. The team of scientists has carried the lizard along to preserve it for research.
This lizard species was first detected and collected in 1877 by a Britisher, Colonel RH Beddome from Jeypore Hills in Orissa. A doctorate student of the Centre for Ecological Sciences, Ishan Agarwal, had been working on the Geckoella since 2008 to understand more about its evolutionary history.
Besides Agarwal, the other two team members were Aniruddha Datta-Roy and field assistant Tarun Khichi.
Agarwal said the rediscovery was a product of two years of collaborative efforts of scientists from the Centre for Ecological Sciences; the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore; the Bombay Natural History Society, Mumbai, and the America-based Villanova University.
He said the initial work involved poring over scanty published information on the species to retrace the journey that Colonel Beddome had made in the Eastern Ghats a century ago. “The only clues on the species were from its original description, which said that the species was collected under a rock in a forest at 4,200 feet on “Patinghe Hill, Jeypore,” said Agarwal. He described the team’s discovery a result of “persistence work and little bit of luck”.
Varad Giri from Bombay Natural History Society and Aaron Bauer of Villanova University studied the biological classification of the lizard species. “The discovery is unique among Indian geckos as it has enlarged, hexagonal, plate-like scales across the back,” he said.
The scientist warned that the immense manmade changes in the natural system was making time run out for many species. “There is an urgent need for trained biologists to undertake country-wide surveys,” said Giri.
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