New Spotted Gecko Found in Tiger Reserve
The nocturnal reptile proved hard to find—it lives amid steep cliffs and looks a lot like other known geckos.
In central India's Satpura Tiger Reserve, scientists have found a much tinier predator: A new species of gecko.
About the size of a human palm, the reptile was not easy to find: It's active at night, dwells on vertical cliffs, and looks a lot like its close relatives.
In 2014, Zeeshan A. Mirza and David Raju were crawling through caves and thick forest near a hill station looking for another type of gecko.
“The area is dominated by bears and gets quite scary at night,” says Mirza, an independent wildlife biologist.
Then, the team saw a pale brown lizard with white and dark brown spots on its back running up a wall near the road. An expert in this gecko group, called
