Spots amongst the stripes! Three new spotted species of ground-dwelling Cyrtodactylus Gray, 1827 (Reptilia: Squamata) from tiger conservation landscapes in peninsular India

We describe three new species of ground-dwelling gecko of the dry-zone clade of Cyrtodactylus (Geckoella) from peninsular India in an integrative taxonomic framework. All three new species have a spotted dorsal colour pattern; and their small body size and original tail shorter than body, besides the lack of femoral or precloacal pores in males, easily differentiate them from all other Cyrtodactylus apart from other Cyrtodactylus (Geckoella).

The two new species from the Southern Western Ghats can be assigned to the C. collegalensis species complex based on homogeneous granular dorsal scalation without rows of enlarged, rounded tubercles; with 4.2–17.9 % uncorrected ND 2 sequence divergence from each other and other named species of the C. collegalensis complex. The third species from central India can be assigned to the C. nebulosus species complex based on its dorsal scalation consisting of granular scales intermixed with rows of enlarged, rounded tubercles, and a 14.1–17.4 % uncorrected ND 2 sequence divergence from other named species.

The three new species are distinct in colour pattern from all other dry-zone Geckoella and occupy distinct positions in multivariate morphospace from phylogenetically allied taxa. Cyrtodactylus shenbagathoppuensis sp. nov. and C. kalakadensis sp. nov. are from Srivilliputhur-Megamalai Tiger Reserve and Kalakad-Mundanthurai Tiger Reserve in the Southern Western Ghats (south of the Palghat Gap) of Tamil Nadu, respectively, while C. satpuraensis sp. nov. is found in multiple Tiger Reserves across the Satpuras in central and western India.

The former two species are known only from a single locality each, while the last is distributed across localities as far apart as> 700 km with very low divergence.