Critically Endangered
Satara gecko
Hemidactylus sataraensis
Satara gecko is a gecko in the family Gekkonidae — Hemidactylus sataraensis, recorded as Critically Endangered.
Appearance
Morphologically it can be distinguished by the large size and a set of specific scale patterns and colors.
The species was described in 2008, from Chalkewadi in Maharashtra.
Range and habitat
It is endemic to the Western Ghats, India. The habitat is lateritic rock outcrop, characterized by extreme climatic conditions during monsoon and summer periods in the Western India. Other species occurring in the habitat are Hemidactylus cf. Brookii, Echis carinatus, Sarada superba, and many predatory arthropods among them spiders, scorpions, and centipedes.
Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.
Breeding
It is estimated that the species breed more than once per year, and many morphological and behavioral characters are similar to the sister species Hemidactylus albofasciatus.
In crisis
The individuals are known to retain their ‘S’-shaped body posture. Assessments by IUCN has shown the species is on decline due to rock extraction, wind farm development, fragmentation by roads, and potentially also, climate change.
Satara gecko is Critically Endangered on this catalog because that is the IUCN category stored on Wikidata. Confirm the official criteria and any later count on iucnredlist.org.
Sources
Written for this catalog from the English Wikipedia article on Satara gecko, Wikidata item Q3130131. Family and order context is original field-guide writing about the group, not a copied assessment of this one species. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA. Not an IUCN assessment. Counts, when quoted, can change — confirm them on the recovery programme and on iucnredlist.org.
