Endangered
Marlborough green gecko
Naultinus manukanus
Marlborough green gecko is a small species of gecko endemic to New Zealand.
Appearance
N. Manukanus is usually bright green. The dorsal surface of N. Manukanus is a uniform green that is sometimes paired with small paler spots. N. Manukanus also has enlarged conical scales, usually present on the snout, head, and along dorsolateral surfaces.
Range and habitat
N. Manukanus is endemic to New Zealand. N. Manukanus populations occur throughout the Marlborough region. Populations can be found as far south as the Wairau River and west to the Bryant and Richmond ranges.
Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.
Breeding
The breeding season of N. Manukanus occurs between June and October (observed in captivity). Males exhibit mate guarding behaviour that includes following the females around.
N. Manukanus is cathemeral (active both day and night), although it is predominantly diurnal (day-active) and is heliothermic, meaning they require heat by basking under the sun.
In crisis
In 2012 the Department of Conservation classified the Marlborough gecko as At Risk under the New Zealand Threat Classification System. It was judged as meeting the criteria for At Risk threat status as a result of it having a low to high ongoing or predicted decline. Populations have been threatened through habitat loss/destruction, habitat fragmentation, and the introduction of introduced mammalian predators among them rats, mice, mustelids, and possums.
N. Manukanus populations also struggled with competition for food sources against introduced vespulid wasps.
CITES lists this taxon on Appendix II. Confirm the current appendix on the CITES checklist.
Marlborough green gecko is 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 Marlborough green gecko, Wikidata item Q3729357. 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.
