Geckolepis
Geckolepis is a genus of geckos, commonly referred to as fish scale geckos, which are endemic to Madagascar and the Comoro Islands. They are nocturnal, arboreal, insectivorous lizards, found in primary and secondary forest, as well as degraded habitats. They are best known for their ability to lose their skin and scales when grasped by a predator.
Scherz MD, Daza JD, Köhler J, Vences M, Glaw F. · CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.
On record
Recorded, not inferred- Sits inside
- GekkonidaePBDB
- Diet
- insectivore, carnivorePBDB, for Gekkonidae
- Life habit
- ground dwellingPBDB, for Gekkonidae
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Amniota
Time the record covers
At most 12 thousand years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 11.7 ka and 0 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
2 occurrences of Geckolepis on record, most of them in the Holocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.
When
2 occurrences- Holocene100%
These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.
Geckolepis and its relatives
HoloceneWhere Geckolepis and its relatives were recorded in the Holocene.
Found in the same rock
51 taxa- Accipiter madagascariensis2 sites
- Archaeolemur edwardsi2 sites
- Avahi cleesei2 sites
- Babakotia radofilai2 sites
- Buteo2 sites
- Capra aegagrus2 sites
- cf. Boophinae indet.2 sites
- Chaerephon leucogastert2 sites
- Cheirogaleus medius2 sites
- Coracopsis nigra2 sites
- Coua2 sites
- Coua cristata2 sites
- Coua gigas2 sites
- Cryptoprocta2 sites
- Cryptoprocta ferox2 sites
- Dryolimnas cuvieri2 sites
- Eliurus2 sites
- Erymnochelys madagascariensis2 sites
- Eulemur mongoz2 sites
- Eulemur rufus2 sites
- Eurystomus glaucurus2 sites
- Felis lybica2 sites
- Galidia elegans2 sites
- Hapalemur griseus2 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 2 sites for Geckolepis, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.
This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.
Entered from
1 referenceEach of the 2 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Each entry links to doi.org. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.
Media and terms
Media content2
Picture of Geckolepis
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Scherz MD, Daza JD, Köhler J, Vences M, Glaw F.
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
CT scan
- Source
- MorphoSource
- Credit
- CAS Herpetology (HERP)
- Licence
- In Copyright
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
- Specimen
- Geckolepis maculata · cas:herp:126344
Smithsonian Open Access was not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.
The description on this site
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Geckolepis”
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itGekkonidae through timeFormations of the HoloceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Grandidier 1867