REDISCOVERY OF Hemidactylus scabriceps (ANNANDALE, 1906) (REPTILIA: SAURIA: GEKKONIDAE) FROM EASTERN TAMIL NADU, INDIA S. R. Ganesh 1 and S. R. Chandramouli 2 Submitted January 26, 2009. Hemidactylus scabriceps, a gekkonid lizard originally described from the Ramnad district of Tamil Nadu, India, is recorded from Mannampandal, Nagapattinam district in the same state. This is the third known locality for this species in India and the first Indian record in 72 years. The species also occurs in Sri Lanka. Data on lepidosis and natural history, as well as the first life photographs of H. scabriceps are provided. Keywords: Hemidactylus scabriceps, rediscovery, distribution, Tamil Nadu, Sri Lanka, tropical dry evergreen forest. INTRODUCTION Annandale (1906) undertook a survey in the Ram- nad (= Ramanathapuram) district of Tamil Nadu with the intention to explore the fauna of a desert tract in south India, and compare it with that of the north-west- ern frontier. In this work he described a distinctive new gecko, Teratolepis scabriceps. This taxon was later transferred to a new, monotypic genus, Lophopholis Smith et Deraniyagala 1934. Thereafter the combination Lophopholis scabriceps was used in several works, in- cluding the influential book of Smith (1935). Later, Lophopholis was synonymized with Hemidactylus Oken, 1817 by Loveridge (1947), based on similarities in digital structure. The combination Hemidactylus sca- briceps (Annandale, 1906) has since been widely, but not universally employed for this taxon, as authors like Das and Andrews (1997), Das and de Silva (2005), de Silva (1996, 1998), Kluge (1991, 1993, 2001), Love- ridge (1947), and Rösler (2000) accepted it as Hemidac- tylus scabriceps, while others like Murthy (1990) and Tikader and Sharma (1992) retained it as Lophopholis even after Loveridge’s (1947) allocation of it to Hemi- dactylus (Bauer et al., 2008). Bauer et al. (2008) sug- gested that this species was closely allied to those Hemidactylus formerly allocated to the genus Terato- lepis as they share imbricate scalation, a rare condition among geckos. Deraniyagala (1949) gave its Sinhalese name as “Korapothu huna”[Korapothu = scales; huna = gecko] (fide Ruchira Somaweera, personal communica- tion), an early recognition of its unusual (i.e., imbricate) scalation. Smith (1935) and Murthy (1990) state that it is a nocturnal species, inhabiting sandy sea shores and it has been recorded from Adiyar, Madras (now Chennai), and Mariccukatte, Northern Province, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) as well as the type locality Ramnad (then in Madura dist.), Tamil Nadu, India. Murthy (1990) re- marked that it was rare and that practically nothing was known about its life history. Wickramasinghe and Somaweera (2008) surveyed throughout Sri Lanka for geckos but did not find H. scabriceps. MATERIAL AND METHODS A live subadult female was observed on 7 th Decem- ber 2006 at 17:13 during a herpetological survey near Anbanadhapuram Vahaira Charity (A.V.C.) College campus (Mannampandal village). Meristic, mensural, and color pattern data were recorded. Mensural data were recorded using slide calipers (L.C. = 0.3 mm) and the values were reported in mm. All photographs of the gecko (except Fig. 1a) were taken in life and in situ, us- ing Canon Powershot A640 and Canon EOS 400D model cameras. Geographic coordinates and altitude (in meters) of Mannampandal were determined from Gar- 1026-2296/2010/1701-0070 © 2010 Folium Publishing Company Russian Journal of Herpetology Vol. 17, No. 1, 2010, pp. 70 – 74 1 Department of Zoology, Division of Wildlife Biology, A.V.C. Col- lege (Autonomous), Mannampandal, Mayiladuthurai, 609305, Tamil Nadu, India; E-mail: snakeranglerr@gmail.com 2 Department of Zoology, Division of Wildlife Biology, A.V.C. Col- lege (Autonomous), Mannampandal, Mayiladuthurai, 609305, Tamil Nadu, India.