The Jamaican giant gecko (''Tarentola albertschwartzi''), also known
commonly as Schwartz's wall gecko, is a species of
lizard
Lizards are a widespread group of squamate reptiles, with over 7,000 species, ranging across all continents except Antarctica, as well as most oceanic island chains. The group is paraphyletic since it excludes the snakes and Amphisbaenia alt ...
in the
family
Family (from la, familia) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its ...
Phyllodactylidae
The Phyllodactylidae are a family of geckos (Gekkota) consisting of over 150 species in 10 genera, distributed throughout the New World, North Africa, Europe and the Middle East. The family was first delineated based on a molecular phylogenetic ...
. The species is
endemic
Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found elsew ...
to
Jamaica
Jamaica (; ) is an island country situated in the Caribbean Sea. Spanning in area, it is the third-largest island of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean (after Cuba and Hispaniola). Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, and west of His ...
.
Etymology
The
specific name Specific name may refer to:
* in Database management systems, a system-assigned name that is unique within a particular database
In taxonomy, either of these two meanings, each with its own set of rules:
* Specific name (botany), the two-part (bino ...
, ''albertschwartzi'', is in honor of American herpetologist
Albert Schwartz.
[Beolens, Bo; Watkins, Michael; Grayson, Michael (2011). ''The Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles''. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. xiii + 296 pp. . (''Tarentola albetschwartzi'', p. 239).]
Taxonomy
''T. albertschwartzi'' is only known from a single specimen uncovered in the late 1990s in a museum in Scotland; this specimen was entered into the collection in 1884 and labelled as from Jamaica. The species is possibly extinct.
References
Further reading
*
Carranza S,
Arnold EN,
Mateo JA,
López-Jurado LF (2000). "Long-distance colonization and radiation in gekkonid lizards, ''Tarentola'' (Reptilia: Gekkonidae), revealed by mitochondrial DNA sequences". ''Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences'' 267: 637–649.
*
Rösler H (2000). "''Kommentierte Liste der rezent, subrezent und fossil bekannten Geckotaxa (Reptilia: Gekkonomorpha)''". ''Gekkota'' 2: 28–153. "''Tarentola (Neotarentola) albertschwartzi'' ", new combination, p. 115. (in German).
*
Sprackland RG,
Swinney GN (1998). "A new species of giant gecko of the genus ''Tarentola'' (Reptilia: Squamata: Gekkonidae) from Jamaica". ''Journal of Zoology'' 245 (1): 73–78. (''Tarentola albertschwartzi'', new species).
*
Wilson BS (2011). "Conservation of Jamaican amphibians and reptiles". ''In'':
Hailey A (2011). ''Conservation of Caribbean Island Herpetofaunas Volume 2: Regional Accounts of the West Indies''. Leiden, Netherlands: Brill. 440 pp. .
Tarentola
Reptiles described in 1998
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