> From: "Peter Mudde" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Date: Thu, 1 Mar 2001 02:21:37 -0500
>
> >Is there any evidence that Lygodactylus is particularly related to
> >Phelsuma? Both are diurnal with round pupils, but this could be
> >convergence. However, the color patterns of some species in the
> >two genera seem to have some similarity. I wonder if when Madagascar
> >split from Africa, it split a common ancestral species.
>
> I have spend my final paper on trying to establish that hypothesis
> (Lygodactylus and Phelsuma are sistergroups with the Gekko-genus and its
> relatives as closest outgroup) but never had it published (I have submitted
> the article to 'Dactylus, but never heard from that since..). I thought
> Millotosaurus were the most 'primitive' members ans also, the group
> "P.breviceps, P.mutabilis and P.ocellata' were a distinct group within this
> Lygodactylus/Phelsuma clade..
Biogeographically, it would make sense if proto-Gekko sailed north with
the Indian plate after it split off from Madagascar, then spread into the
areas which became southeast Asia. This is an interesting idea. Which other
genera do you put in the same clade as Gekko?
> I stillkeep in thouch with and east Gekko-taxonomy and have not seen any real
> evidence against this hypothesis, but I should revise the article I wrote
> and maybe submit it forpublishing..
I would like to read your paper, if you would be willing to send it to me.
If you and Hartmut would share your bibliography on gecko phylogeny with
me, I would appreciate it.
I'm curious about Phelsuma cladistics, especially the relationships of
the island forms. In the West Indies, Anolis is a remarkable example of
convergence - many islands have numerous species specialized for fairly
narrow biotopes, all of which descend from an original colonizer species.
Species in similar biotopes on different islands resemble each other much
more closely than they do their genetically closer relatives on the same
island. Is this the current theory on Phelsuma, or is it believed that
some islands had multiple colonizations? Btw, I'm still astounded that
a gecko could survive the voyage to the Andaman Islands and found a species
there, and wonder how Phelsuma made it to Namibia, but nowhere in between!
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