A New Species of Gecko with Javier Lobon Rovira

Imagine this: you’re hiking in the savannah of western Angola when you spot the silhouette of a gecko in the brush. You pick it up, expecting to find your old friend Kolekanos plumicaudus, a little brown patterned gecko with a feather-like tail. But when you look at this gecko, its tail is entirely different, spines instead of feathery plumes.

When his colleague brought him the first four specimens, Javier Lobon Rovira knew immediately that they had found a new species. Listen in as he shares his tips for finding geckos, how special this species is to him, and how important it is to give attention to understudied areas like the Angolan savannah.

Javier Lobon Rovira’s paper “A new species of feather-tailed leaf-toed gecko, Kolekanos Heinicke, Daza, Greenbaum, Jackman, Bauer, 2014 (Squamata, Gekkonidae) from the poorly explored savannah of western Angola” is in the November 2nd issue of Zookeys. It can be found here: https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.1127.84942 New Species: Kolekanos spinicaudus

Episode image courtesy of Javier Lobon Rovira.

Check out Javier’s stunning photography: here!, and follow Javier on Instagram: @javilbn_wildphotography