> From: "Kevin Emmerich" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Date: Mon, 30 Jul 2001 20:03:31 -0400
>
> I am new to the board, but have long loved gecko ecology, evolution and
> having captives. I work with a herpetologist, Dave Morafka, and he gave us
> an "Egyptian sand gecko". Dave got him from a breeder without a confirmed
> ID. The gecko is very interesting. We think he is a Stenodactylus petrii. We
> looked in a book called Amphibians and Reptiles of North Africa; or perhaps
> just Stenodactylus sthenodactylus. He digs into a small hide box and erases
> his tracks with his tail. Great to watch!
That's a wonderful book. I got it from the university library - I'd
recommend it to anyone interested in the herpetofauna of this part of
the world.It has a lot of natural history and behaviour info as well as
taxonomy.
> Here is a photo. Take a shot at ID! (please)
I think you may well have the true S.petrii, judging by the shape of the
tail as described in the book. I've got a group of S.sthenodactylus and
enjoy watching them a lot.
These two Stenodactylus species both occur over an immense geographic
range, from Morocco to the Arava Valley (the one the Dead Sea is in,
between southern Israel and Jordan). There's probably a lot of local
variation and perhaps even cryptic species over this range. There seems
to be a lot of confusion about which animals are which species in captive
colonies.
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