On the occurrence of Lichtenstein’s Short-fingered Gecko, Stenodactylus sthenodactylus (Squamata: Gekkonidae) in Saudi Arabia

Abstract

Stenodactylus sthenodactylus (Lichtenstein, 1823) is a widely distributed naked-toed gecko found from Western Sahara throughout North Africa to Jordan. While its occurrence in Saudi Arabia was tentatively assumed but not yet confirmed, we report its presence by documenting several individuals from the north-westernmost margin of Tabuk Province in 2021 and 2023. These new records are discussed in light of relevant literature and previous records originating from Tiran and Sanafir islands in the late 20^th century, before they were transferred to Saudi Arabia in 2016. These records predate the mainland records reported here.

Keywords:

• Middle East
• Palaearctic naked-toed geckos
• range extension
• Sanafir Island
• Tiran Island

Acknowledgements

LP and DME would like to thank Abdulaziz Mohammed Mufleh Al-Atwi and Hamed Tariq Al-Ghurid for their company and technical support during the fieldwork. The research was conducted under the KAUST Beacon Development’s active research protocol and permit (22IACUC02) approved by the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (the IACUC). We would like to thank Shai Meiri (the Steinhardt Museum of Natural History, Tel Aviv University, Israel) for providing spatial data from Israel, Prof. Yehudah L. Werner and Boaz Shacham (National Natural History Collections, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel) for providing information on specimens housed in their collections and for confirming the identification of the HUJ material, and finally to Petr Halajčuk (Czech Republic) for clarifying some historical-political connections and their consequences.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest is reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

The fieldwork was part of a project developed and funded by NEOM Nature Region, as part of efforts to promote conservation of natural resources and contributions towards the strategic goal “In Harmony with Nature”. LP was supported by the grant of the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of the Czech Republic no. SVV260685/2023.