{"id":2543,"date":"2020-07-15T16:40:30","date_gmt":"2020-07-15T06:40:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?p=2543"},"modified":"2020-07-15T16:40:30","modified_gmt":"2020-07-15T06:40:30","slug":"groote-heavens-a-new-gecko","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?p=2543","title":{"rendered":"Groote heavens! A new gecko!"},"content":{"rendered":"During the past decade a team of Australian researchers has undertaken a combination of surveys, genetic diversity assessments, and studies across the Northern Territory\u2019s Top End. They have resulted in the discovery of a growing number of previously unrecognised vertebrate species endemic to Australia\u2019s Monsoonal Tropics.\r\n\r\nResearcher Graeme Gillespie, from the NT\u2019s Department of Environment and Natural resources and co-author of the paper published recently in online journal <em>Zootaxa<\/em>, said the discoveries highlighted the biological significance of northern Australia\u2019s islands. Not only have they provided \u2018critically important refuges\u2019 for many threatened species like the northern hopping mouse, and brush-tailed rabbit rat &#8211; both in decline on the mainland \u2013 but species unique to the region\u2019s islands have also been revealed as a result of the studies.<!--more-->\r\n\u201cWe\u2019re now also discovering many of them have their own endemic species that are found nowhere else, and that have been completely overlooked until now,\u201d Gillespie, who led the work on Groote Eylandt, the third largest offshore island in the Gulf of Carpentaria, where a large and colourful gecko, (<em>Oedura nesos<\/em>) has now been described by researchers as, \u2018a large, colourful species with white bands and yellow spots, that lives in rock crevices\u2019, said.\r\n\r\nCo-author and lead researcher Paul Oliver, a lecturer at Griffith University\u2019s School of Environmental Sciences \u2013 Ecology and Evolution, and who was part of the team that described a similar velvet gecko species in 2016, said the babies of the new species were even more striking than the parents, being black with bright white bands.\r\n\r\n\u201cWe had some clues it might not be the same as the <em>Oedura bella<\/em>, or gulf marbled velvet gecko that we described in 2016, and fortunately we were able to work with researchers from the NT government, and traditional owners and rangers from the Anindilyakwa Land Council to get material for genetic analyses, and pictures of the animal in life,\u201d Oliver said.\r\n\r\nCo-author Chris Jolly, a PhD candidate at the University of Melbourne\u2019s School of BioSciences, Ecology and Evolution Laboratory, said nine new species were described last year, which was exciting but also important for gaining a greater understanding of the region\u2019s biodiversity.\r\n\r\n\u201cI\u2019m currently writing a field guide to the reptiles of the Northern Territory, and the list of species I have to include is growing rapidly. I\u2019m struggling to keep up!\u201d he said.\r\nWhile further survey work will be necessary to confirm the gecko is an, \u2018insular endemic\u2019 species to Groote Eylandt, the research team acknowledged the support of Groote\u2019s traditional owners and the land council for supporting their ongoing work.\r\n\r\n<strong>Anne Layton-Bennett<\/strong>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>During the past decade a team of Australian researchers has undertaken a combination of surveys, genetic diversity assessments, and studies across the Northern Territory\u2019s Top End. They have resulted in the discovery of a growing number of previously unrecognised vertebrate species endemic to Australia\u2019s Monsoonal Tropics. Researcher Graeme Gillespie, from the NT\u2019s Department of Environment [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2544,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[852,1977,113,599,1978,1975,1976],"class_list":["post-2543","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-gecko","tag-groote-eylandt","tag-news-2","tag-northern-territory","tag-oedura-nesos","tag-top-end","tag-zootaxa"],"rise-blocks_total_comments":0,"rise-blocks_categories":[{"term_id":5,"name":"News","slug":"news","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":5,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":402,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":5,"category_count":402,"category_description":"","cat_name":"News","category_nicename":"news","category_parent":0}],"rise-blocks_excerpt":"During the past decade a team of Australian researchers has undertaken a combination of surveys, genetic diversity assessments, and studies across the Northern Territory\u2019s Top End. They have resulted in the discovery of a growing number of previously unrecognised vertebrate species endemic to Australia\u2019s Monsoonal Tropics. Researcher Graeme Gillespie, from the NT\u2019s Department of Environment and Natural resources and co-author..","blog_post_layout_featured_media_urls":{"thumbnail":["https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/Gecko_Oedura-nesos_baby_Angurugu_NT__credit-Chris-Jolly-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"full":["https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/Gecko_Oedura-nesos_baby_Angurugu_NT__credit-Chris-Jolly.jpg",330,220,false]},"categories_names":{"5":{"name":"News","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?cat=5"}},"tags_names":{"852":{"name":"gecko","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=gecko"},"1977":{"name":"Groote Eylandt","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=groote-eylandt"},"113":{"name":"news","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=news-2"},"599":{"name":"Northern Territory","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=northern-territory"},"1978":{"name":"Oedura nesos","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=oedura-nesos"},"1975":{"name":"Top End","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=top-end"},"1976":{"name":"Zootaxa","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=zootaxa"}},"comments_number":"0","wpmagazine_modules_lite_featured_media_urls":{"thumbnail":["https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/Gecko_Oedura-nesos_baby_Angurugu_NT__credit-Chris-Jolly-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"cvmm-medium":["https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/Gecko_Oedura-nesos_baby_Angurugu_NT__credit-Chris-Jolly.jpg",300,200,false],"cvmm-medium-plus":["https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/Gecko_Oedura-nesos_baby_Angurugu_NT__credit-Chris-Jolly.jpg",305,203,false],"cvmm-portrait":["https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/Gecko_Oedura-nesos_baby_Angurugu_NT__credit-Chris-Jolly.jpg",330,220,false],"cvmm-medium-square":["https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/Gecko_Oedura-nesos_baby_Angurugu_NT__credit-Chris-Jolly.jpg",330,220,false],"cvmm-large":["https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/Gecko_Oedura-nesos_baby_Angurugu_NT__credit-Chris-Jolly.jpg",330,220,false],"cvmm-small":["https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/Gecko_Oedura-nesos_baby_Angurugu_NT__credit-Chris-Jolly.jpg",130,87,false],"full":["https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/Gecko_Oedura-nesos_baby_Angurugu_NT__credit-Chris-Jolly.jpg",330,220,false]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2543","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2543"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2543\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2545,"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2543\/revisions\/2545"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2544"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2543"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2543"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2543"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}