Males of the species have a yellow head and forebody and lightweight blue spots on the again and so they dwell in low elevation forests of the Southern Western Ghats.

You’ve in all probability seen nature depicted in artwork, however how typically do you see an art work hiding in nature?

Once they noticed the again of a lizard within the Southern Western Ghats, a bunch of scientists from the Thackeray Wildlife Basis in India have been reminded of Van Gogh’s The Starry Night time. As quickly as they found out it was a brand new species, it was solely apt to call it in honour of the well-known painter.

“Cnemaspis vangoghi is named for Dutch painter Vincent Van Gogh (1853–1890) as the striking colouration of the new species is reminiscent of one of his most iconic paintings, The Starry Night,” explains Ishan Agarwal, who took half within the  examine to explain the brand new lizard. Males of the species have a yellow head and forebody and lightweight blue spots on the again and so they dwell amongst rocks and infrequently buildings and bushes.

Collectively along with his fellow researchers Akshay Khandekar and Tejas Thackeray, they discovered the brand new species throughout an expedition in April 2022 to the the Southern Western Ghats in Tamil Nadu, India. Now, they’ve printed their findings within the peer-reviewed journal ZooKeys.

“Tamil Nadu is an exceptionally biodiverse state and we expect to name well over 50 new species of lizards by the time we are done [with our expeditions]!,” Ishan Agarwal says.

“I also had more than 500 tick bites during that summer trip, with the highest densities in the low-elevation, dry forests of Srivilliputhur, where the new species are found,” he provides.

Cnemaspis vangoghi is a small-sized gecko that may attain 3,4 cm in size. It was described as new to science along with one other species of its genus, Cnemaspis sathuragiriensis, named for its sort locality the Sathuragiri Hills.

 “The two new species are distributed in low elevation (250–400 m asl.), deciduous forests of Srivilliputhur, and add to the five previously known endemic vertebrates from Srivilliputhur-Megamalai Tiger Reserve, Tamil Nadu, India,” Ishan Agarwal explains. They’re diurnal and primarily energetic through the cool hours of the early morning and night, discovered largely on rocks. To this point, they’ve solely been present in very restricted localities, “an interesting case of micro-endemism in low-elevation species,” he notes.

Analysis article:

Khandekar A, Thackeray T, Agarwal I (2024) Two new species of the Cnemaspis galaxia complicated (Squamata, Gekkonidae) from the japanese slopes of the southern Western Ghats. ZooKeys 1196: 209-242. https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.1196.117947

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