A New Species of the Genus Lepidodactylus Fitzinger (Squamata: Gekkonidae) from the Mortlock Islands, Chuuk State, Federated States of Micronesia

A new species in the Group II complex of the gekkonid lizard genus Lepidodactylus Fitzinger is described based on recently collected material from Namoluk Atoll, Mortlock Islands, Chuuk State, Federated States of Micronesia. Lepidodactylus oligoporus Buden, n. sp., is distinguished from other members of Group II by differences in the numbers of midbody scale rows (130–134), fourth-toe scansors (15–19), interorbital scales (34–35), and precloacal/femoral pore-bearing scales (12–15) and by the lack of cloacal spurs and the presence of a moderate amount of webbing between the toes. In body size and scutellation, it most resembles L. novaeguineae Brown & Parker from New Guinea and L. pulcher Boulenger from the Admiralty Islands. The gekkonid genus Lepidodactylus Fitzinger includes 31 species (Uetz et al. 2005) that for the most part are distributed from Southeast Asia southward and eastward to the Indo-Australian Archipelago and Oceania (Bauer and Henle 1994, Ota et al. 2000, Zug et al. 2003). With the exception of the parthenogenetic L. lugubris (Dumeril & Bibron) and its two parental species (Radtkey et al. 1995, Ineich 1999), the species each have rather limited distributions and are often found on only one or a few small island groups (Ota et al. 1995, 2000, Zug et al. 2003). Three infrageneric species groups proposed by Brown and Parker (1977) are recognized based largely on the morphology of subdigital scansors: Group I species ( pumilus group) completely lack deeply notched or divided scansors, Group II species (guppyi group) have only a few of the subterminal scansors divided or notched, and Group III species (lugubris group) have the terminal as well as several subterminal scansors divided or notched. Among the 10 species in Group II (see Zug et al. 2003), L. paurolepis Ota, Fischer, Ineich & Case from Palau is the only one recorded from the Caroline Islands, a chain of high volcanic islands and many more low coralline atolls spanning approximately 3,200 km across the west-central Pacific Ocean from Palau in the west to Kosrae in the east (Figure 1). Specimens of a Group II Lepidodactylus were recently collected from Namoluk Atoll, Mortlock Islands, Chuuk, Micronesia, in the central Carolines. They differ from L. paurolepis and all other Group II members by a combination of morphological character states and are herein described as a new spe-