A new species of Hemidactylus Goldfuss, 1820 (Squamata, Gekkonidae) from the Northern Eastern Ghats, Odisha, India

We describe a new species of large-bodied, rock-dwelling gecko of the genus Hemidactylus from the Eastern Ghats of Odisha, India. The new species is genetically distinct, as already indicated in previous studies, and differs from all other congeners in a combination of morphological characters, such as dorsal scalation of small granules intermixed with large, pointed, trihedral tubercles that form 15–19 fairly regularly arranged longitudinal rows at midbody; 9–11 subdigital lamellae below the first and 12–14 below the fourth digit; 22–26 femoral pores separated by five poreless scales in males; and 11–13 supralabials and 9–11 infralabials.

The new species is from the Eastern Ghats clade of large-bodied, tuberculated Hemidactylus and can be readily diagnosed morphologically from the two sister species, H. sushilduttai and H. kangerensis, in having characters such as the second postmental distinct and ~ 70 % of the first postmental; the first postmental touching infralabial I and the second postmental touching infralabials I and II; and one post-cloacal spur on each side.

The new species is distributed in the northern Eastern Ghats range of Odisha, inhabiting moist and dry deciduous forests and rock boulders and occasionally entering human habitations.