Lepidodactylus browni (Squamata, Gekkonidae) Placed in the Synonymy of L. orientalis
Lepidodactylus browni
Pernetta and Black, 1983 was described from mangrove habitat a few kilometers east of Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea. It was distinguished from L. orientalisBrown and Parker, 1977, described from Port Moresby, by differences in central tendency in adult snout–vent length, numbers of precloacal/femoral pores in males, and relative width of toe discs. We re-examine morphological data for these species and provide a molecular analysis of new sequences of each species to which we add existing sequences from the literature. We find large amounts of overlap between these taxa in the proposed diagnostic morphological characters and no distinction in the two between one mitochondrial and one nuclear gene. We conclude that L. browni is a junior synonym of L. orientalis and that the sole difference in central tendency in relative toe-pad width may be because of adaptation to different structural habitats.ABSTRACT
(A) Lepidodactylus orientalis from near Leialeia, Central Province, Papua New Guinea (PNG); (B) savannah habitat common throughout the area around Port Moresby, PNG; (C) upland habitat at Varirata National Park, Central Province, PNG, the highest elevation (765 m above sea level) from which L. orientalis has been collected; and (D) the mangrove habitat at Bootless Bay, Central Province, PNG, from which L. browni was described. Photos: (A, D) V. Weijola, (B, C) M. O'Shea.
Map of Papua New Guinea (top), with inset (bottom) of the vicinity of Port Moresby showing localities sampled in this study. Red = locality sampled for molecular data only; blue = localities sampled for morphological data only; purple = localities sampled for both molecular and morphological data. Green line shows the current boundary of Port Moresby. 1 = Agevairu Station; 2 = Leialeia; 3 = “Frog Pond”; 4 = National Research Institute; 5 = central Port Moresby (type locality for Lepidodactylus orientalis); 6 = Varirata National Park; 7 = Dogura Inlet, Bootless Bay; 8 = Bogoro Inlet, Bootless Bay (type locality for L. browni).
Maximum-likelihood tree of Lepidodactylus orientalis Group for concatenated dataset with bootstrap values >50% shown for each node; rooted with L. mitchelli outgroup (not shown). Scale bar corresponds to the mean number of nucleotide substitutions per site.
Median-joining haplotype network for the Lepidodactylus orientalis Group. Circle sizes are proportional to numbers of individuals; colors differentiate species; parentheses contain the number of mutational steps between haplotypes.
Morphological comparisons between Lepidodactylus browni (white) and L. orientalis (black). (A) Snout–vent length of adults; (B) number of precloacal/femoral pores in males; and (C) relative toe width.
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