Hello Robert, You have every reason to be confused. Don't worry though, things are slowly being sorted out.
First, Crossobamon orientalis... These do not seem to be coming in as much as was originally thought. They are easily distinguishable from Stenodactylus by the smattering of enlarged scales across their back. C. orientalis are occasionally exported from Pakistan but never, it seems, in large numbers. Now, Stenodactylus... The vast majority of Stenodactylus in the pet trade are coming in from Egypt. The problems associated with identifying these geckos stem from two main problems. First, the presence of intraspecific variation and/or undescribed species. There are, as you mentioned, two distinct forms of S. sthenodactylus, the round or blunt-nosed variety and the pig-nosed or tube-nosed variety. These are, in all likelihood, different species. There is also a lot of variation across north Africa. S. petrii from Egypt will of course have differences from a S. petrii from Morocco (a distance equal to the distance between Charleston, North Carolina to Los Angeles) even if they are the same species. This variation makes keying the animals out difficult (see the next paragraph) and it also makes it difficult for people to believe that some seemingly different looking geckos are in fact the same species (even if they really aren't). Second, a lack of access to the literature for much of the herpetocultural public and few adequate keys to the genus make accurate identification difficult if not impossible. One well known key (that has caused quite a bit of trouble for me, at least) is found in Schleich, Kastle, and Kabisch's book "Amphibians and Reptiles of North Africa." Their detailed species descriptions and most prominent key covers herps from Libya where the authors have done much of their work. That key can not consistently distinguish between S. petrii and S. sthenodactylus from Egypt. That book uses differences in nasal scalation to differentiate the two species in Libya. There are two problems with this. First, the S. petrii in Libya have been recently redescribed as S. stenurus. Second, there are apparently two forms of S. sthenodactylus in Egypt that have dramatic differences in their nasal scalation (the above mentioned round or blunt-nosed variety and the pig-nosed or tube-nosed variety). Given that variation, this key is useless. The new GGA photo page seems to reflect this current thinking so I urge you to check it out. In general though the big geckos with the stripe down the side are S. petrii while all the various others are S. sthenodactylus which, as it is currently described, is probably a complex of several species. Rumor has it that an upcoming "Gekko" article will deal with this issue in more detail so stay tuned. I hope this helps. -- Best regards, Tony mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] ########################################################################### THE GLOBAL GECKO ASSOCIATION LISTSERV WebSite: www.gekkota.com Archive: [EMAIL PROTECTED]/ The GGA takes no responsibility for the contents of these postings. ###########################################################################
