Jeypore Ground Gecko: Hidden in the Mountains

Even though it was over 20 years ago, I still remember my first Geckoella. We were on a short hike near Mumbai during my first year of undergrad studies. While the rest of the group was distracted by the lush greens of the monsoon, I was looking around a pile of red lateritic rocks from which emerged the most stunning gecko I had ever seen: the Deccan banded ground gecko (Geckoella deccanensis). This first encounter eventually led to me studying this genus for my PhD, which began in 2008 at the Centre for Ecological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore.

Geckoella — beautiful Indian geckos

The subgenus Geckoella is endemic to peninsular India and Sri Lanka and forms part of the most diverse gecko genus (Cyrtodactylus) or bent-toed geckos. Over 340 species of Cyrtodactylus are distributed from the Western Himalayas through South and Southeast Asia to the Western Pacific, but just five species of Geckoella were known from India when I started my PhD. Interestingly, Geckoella isn’t closely related to the most geographically close geckos (in the Himalayas and Indo-Burma region) but rather to the bent-toed geckos from Southeast Asia. This implies that the ancestor of Geckoella is likely to have reached India from Southeast Asia by oceanic dispersal, as against coming overland. Geckos and other lizards are known to have successfully crossed oceans in their millions of years of evolutionary history. Geckoella is the only group that is almost exclusively ground-dwelling within the bent-toed geckos (which are all climbers). These small to mid-sized (just 9–12 cm in total length), nocturnal and beautifully patterned geckos are found in relatively cool habitats in peninsular India and Sri Lanka.

While scientists and photographers have encountered most Geckoella species, Geckoella jeyporensis was the only species that hadn’t been scientifically recorded since its original description in 1878. The species was described from a single specimen from the “Jeypore Hills” collected “in a wood on the top of Patinghe Hill, 4,200 ft elevation” by the explorer, naturalist, and British military officer, Colonel Richard Henry Beddome. This single specimen has large hexagonal scales across its back, differentiating it from all Indian geckos. Even though it was associated with a fairly specific locality name, Patinghe Hill wasn’t listed in any of the maps and online resources we could access, and there was a Jeypore in both Assam and Odisha.

Tracking down Geckoella jeyporensis

Cut to 2010 and my PhD field trip to Northeast India. I was studying bent-toed geckos, my colleague Aniruddha Datta-Roy was studying skinks, and we had our friend and field assistant Tarun Singh with us. We set off from Bangalore in our trusty 4WD Bolero with neither AC nor power steering. In consultation with friends and colleagues, we deduced that the locality Beddome had described was in Koraput District, Odisha. This was our first visit to this spectacular landscape, with high flat-topped mountains, patches of stunted evergreen forest and lateritic rocks. Though Geckoella are nocturnal, you can find them resting during the day under rocks and logs in shaded forest areas. We began our survey and found some interesting skinks, a potentially undescribed species of shieldtail snake (Uropeltis), and some Hemidactylus geckos. Suddenly, Roy screamed that he had “found something”. Tarun and I ran up to him, and I knew immediately it was a Geckoella jeyporensis. This gorgeous creature quickly replaced the Deccan banded ground gecko for the top spot as the most amazing gecko I had ever seen. It was only the second recorded specimen in over 130 years. Beddome’s original description is less than half a page, but even hundreds of pages cannot do justice to the absolute beauty of this species. The field trip juggernaut kept rolling, however, and we spent the next 1.5 months driving through Northeast India and discovered eight new species of bent-toed geckos and a skink. 

The search continues

I still wanted to survey additional areas for the Jeypore ground gecko, so in 2011, we planned an Eastern Ghats field trip. One of our first stops was the Araku Valley, Andhra Pradesh, where we had discovered a new species of caecilian (of the genus Gegeneophisi) in 2010, but hadn’t seen Geckoella jeyporensis. We decided to survey the same area again.

The best way to spot geckos at night is by eyeshine – the reflection of light off the tapetum lucidum eye tissue. Spiders also have prominent eyeshine, and though they tend to sparkle as you move the light (catching any of their eight eyes!), it can be difficult to tell snakes, frogs, spiders, and geckos apart. One night on a coffee plantation, I spotted what I thought was a spider from the colour of the eyeshine, about five feet up a tree trunk. But the eyeshine wasn’t as sparkly as spiders tend to be. To confirm who the eyeshine belonged to, I approached the tree and found a large, adult Geckoella jeyporensis! We published a note on the rediscovery of the species in 2012, and in 2014 found over ten specimens in another locality in Araku.

An endangered species in shrinking habitats

We now know that Geckoella jeyporensis is restricted to forests above 1,000 m elevation in the northern Eastern Ghats of Andhra Pradesh and Odisha. The species is known only from three localities 30-60 km apart, between 1,000–1,500 m elevations, including relatively undisturbed forests, coffee plantations with natural shade trees, and other slightly more disturbed habitats. The species’ habitat is under varying degrees of anthropogenic (human-induced) pressure, and few pockets of suitable habitat remain. Jeypore ground geckos have also been illegally smuggled out of India for the international pet trade. Though the species occurs in some reserve forest areas, it is unknown in formally protected areas. The only conservation action taken for Geckoella jeyporensis is its recent inclusion in Schedule 1 of the Wildlife Protection Act (1972, 2022 amendment), which means this small gecko has the same legal protection status as the tiger. One can only hope its habitats are protected, as that is the biggest threat to the species.

Discovering new species of Geckoella

Of the five named species of Indian Geckoella before 2016, it turns out that only G. jeyporensis is a single species, while the other four are all complexes of similar-looking but genetically divergent species. Since 2016, seven additional species of Geckoella have been described from India and three from Sri Lanka. DNA sequence data show that Geckoella jeyporensis separated from its sister group, the G. nebulosus complex, about 10–20 million years ago. This means that the high-elevation habitats in the Eastern Ghats where the species is found today are likely to be ancient climate refugia (having stayed relatively stable through a period of aridification and changing climate) that allowed some primaeval groups to survive.

The rediscovery of Geckoella jeyporensis reflects the lack of herpetological research in India. While some species are rare or difficult to find because of ecological traits (such as seasonality, fossoriality (burrowing), arboreality (high canopy species), or small distributional ranges and/or restricted habitat preference), many so-called lost species have simply not been searched for by experienced field biologists.

The first step in biodiversity conservation is knowing what species you have and where they are distributed. It is imperative that systematic surveys are carried out across the incredibly diverse landscapes and habitats in India. This will provide a baseline of the existing diversity and distribution of Indian biodiversity. Based on this, scientific conservation planning can take place.