Beaked Gecko ID?

[Chicken]

Hi everyone, need an ID on this guy.
Found at mungo national park NSW, in range of ornata, but according to a few people it may vary. Can anyone that has their hands on the papers showing the split of the beaked gecko into 6 species please confirm.


Beaked gecko (Rhychoedura Ornata?) by Jlowe Reptiles, on Flickr


Beaked gecko (Rhychoedura Ornata?) by Jlowe Reptiles, on Flickr

 

[clopo]

I have the paper, however it seems to be playing up. Going of distribution alone i think it may be Rhynchoedura angusta, although it is getting close to the range of R. ormsbyi. Im sure someone else will have the paper and be able to give some key morphological features. The markings also look more R. angusta then R. ormsbyi or R. eyrensis.

 

[GeckPhotographer]

They are impossible to tell morphologically clopo, that distribution has not been confirmed as to which species it is, same as most of the distribution of these species.

To quote the describer "You just need to look at piles of thousands of them and then you might have a 60% chance of picking it right. Sheeesh."

Edit: More thorough sampling is definitely needed for this group to hammer out the distributions.

in range of ornata

You mean hundreds of kilometres from their distribution?

 

[clopo]

So the only way to do it is to get a DNA sample everytime? I swear i was reading a paper a month ago which had morphological differences, i thought it was in the Pepper et al (2011) paper. I cant seem to find it now though.

 

[GeckPhotographer]

So the only way to do it is to get a DNA sample everytime? I swear i was reading a paper a month ago which had morphological differences, i thought it was in the Pepper et al (2011) paper. I cant seem to find it now though.

Only if you're in an area they a) overlap b)haven't genetically sampled to determine if there is overlap yet.

Of course you can tell mentalis and sexapora pretty easily. If you read the Pepper et al paper it does give you morphometric differences, such as in the number of narials. It does also give a description of the pattern, which can have some bearing on IDing them, there's just no surefire way. Without genetics, in an overlap zone, you've only got a 'decent chance' to have an educated guess of what you're looking at.