Eublepharis hardwickii
| Eublepharis hardwickii | |
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| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Reptilia |
| Order: | Squamata |
| Family: | Eublepharidae |
| Genus: | Eublepharis |
| Species: | E. hardwickii |
| Binomial name | |
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Eublepharis hardwickii Gray, 1827 |
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Eublepharis hardwickii, commonly known as the East Indian leopard gecko or Hardwicke's gecko, is a species of gecko endemic to India and Bangladesh.
The specific name, hardwickii, is in honor of English naturalist Thomas Hardwicke.
Body stout; limbs rather short; digits short. Snout as long as distance between orbit and ear-opening; the latter large, suboval, vertical. Head covered-with irregular polygonal scales, intermixed with enlarged tubercles on the temple and occiput; rostral sub-pentagonal, twice as broad as high, with, median cleft above; 3 or 4 internasals; about 10 upper and as many lower labials; mental broadly pentagonal, in contact with two enlarged chin-shields, surrounded by irregular smaller ones passing gradually into the flat granules of the gular region. Body covered above with small, irregular, flat scales, intermixed with numerous roundish, subconical tubercles; these tubercles larger than the interspaces between them. Male with 14 to 18 preanal pores. Tail swollen, rounded, tapering at the end, verticillated, above with small flat scales and rows of enlarged sub-corneal tubercles, beneath with larger flat scales arranged regularly. Above reddish brown and cream-coloured; the former colour occupies the head and forms two broad bands across the back, the anterior broadest, and three round the tail; the latter borders the upper lip and extends as a horseshoe-shaped band to the other side, passing across the neck; it also occupies the interspace between the dorsal and caudal brown bands, which are by far the widest; lower surfaces white.
Pale reddish white: the upper part of the head from the nose to the nape, two very broad bands across the trunk, and three or four rings round the tail deep brown or black, the brown portions being edged with black, and broader than the ground-colour. Limbs reddish olive, with black dots on the elbows and knees. There are ten upper and lower labials; two chin-shields larger than the first lower labial. The scales of the middle of the belly form thirty longitudinal series; seventeen pores in an angular series in the pre-anal region.
This species attains a length of from 8 to 9 inches (20 to 23 cm).
Günther mentions four specimens of E. hardwickii: one from Chittagong, two from Russelconda, Madras Presidency, and a fourth from the Anamallai Mountains, collected by Captain R. H. Beddome. W. Elliot, Esq., has also found it in the public bath at Waltair, a suburb of Vizagapatam.
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Wikipedia