‘Milky-white' egg of new scaly species discovered in a crevice of house in China
During the night, they collected six specimens, all now confirmed to belong to a new species of gecko, according to a study published July 16 in the peer-reviewed journal ZooKeys.
The discovery brings the number of recognized Gekko species in the South China Karst — a UNESCO World Heritage Site— to five, highlighting the role that this fragmented ecosystem plays in supporting biodiversity and the development of new species, according to the study.
At about 3 inches long, Gekko fengshanensis, or Fengshan gecko, is distinguished from other species by its 'moderate' size and scale patterns, according to the study.
It is described as having a 'light reddish-brown body' that is long and slender, with scattered white spots on its snout, and yellow-green irises, researchers said. In specimens that have not regenerated their tails, their original is longer than their body, according to the study.
The research team also discovered a single 'milky-white, elliptical egg' just over half an inch long in a crevice of a nearby house, the study said. The finding suggests the new species breeds in July and August.
Karst landscapes are known to limit gene flow among populations of species, the study said. Over time, these populations, separated by geographic barriers like mountains and rivers, evolve into different species in a process called allopatric speciation.
To date, the Fengshan gecko is known only from Fengshan County in China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.
The research team included Zhong Huang, Hao-Tian Wang, Shuo Qi, Han-Ming Song, Yong Huang, Ying-Yong Wang and Yun-Ming Mo.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
National Geographic
6 hours ago
- National Geographic
These tarantulas may have evolved huge genitalia to fend off bloodthirsty females
Researchers have uncovered a new tarantula genus called Satyrex where males may have evolved longer sex organs to avoid getting eaten by fierce females. A female from the species Satyrex ferox is pictured above. Photograph By Premysl Fabianek When scientists discover a new species, they usually name it after the creature's most notable characteristic. So why did a group of scientists recently name a newly discovered genus of tarantulas after satyrs, the famously well-endowed half-goat men from Greek mythology? Like a satyr, the new species have massive members that dwarf those of all other tarantulas, scientists explain in a study published last month in the journal ZooKeys. Females in this genus are extremely aggressive, so scientists speculate that their males evolved ginormous genitals to keep a safer distance during mating. 'New species are found quite regularly, but finding large-sized spiders with such bold behavior and such unique features, that doesn't happen every day,' says Alireza Zamani, an arachnologist at the University of Turku in Finland and co-author of the new find. 'There's a lot that we don't know about our planet.' Female tarantulas (Satyrex somalicus pictured) are known to eat males after sex. Photograph By Premysl Fabianek Chowing down on their mates may give females (Satyrex arabicus pictured) an energy boost to raise a clutch of eggs. Photograph By Mohssin Fageeh Last year, Zamani was poring over old records of tarantula sightings when he noticed something strange. The scientific record, the citizen science platform iNaturalist, and even social media sites were all teeming with reports of tarantulas with massive sex organs in the Arabian Peninsula and the Horn of Africa. Tarantulas, like all spiders, don't have penises; they have palps. Located near the spider's mouth, palps are leg-like appendages that are used for everything from mating to feeding. Males have structures on their palps known as palpal bulbs. The bulbs look like boxing gloves and function like syringes. When it's time to mate, males deposit sperm onto one of their webs and then transfer it to their papal bulbs. Once they have a female in their grasp, they will insert one of their palps into the female's genital opening and deposit their sperm. While palp size varies species to species, the palps that Zamani was seeing were unlike any he had seen before. He contacted researchers in Africa and the Middle East, and eventually got his hands on eight preserved specimens, their impressive palps intact, as well as photos and videos of them in the wild. By studying their structure and DNA, Zamani and his colleagues were able to determine that these tarantulas not only belonged to four new species but also comprised an entirely new genus. They dubbed this new genus Satyrex, which is a combination of Satyr and the Latin word rēx, meaning the spiders in this genus live underground and are 'highly defensive and highly aggressive,' Zamani says. The most aggressive of the bunch is Satyrex ferox. This spider, which is the largest in the genus, has palps that can reach a whopping five centimeters (nearly two inches), making them nearly as long as its longest legs. Their name comes from the Latin word for "fierce." According to Zamani, this spider will assume a defensive posture at the slightest disturbance, raising its front legs and rubbing them together to make a hissing sound. The tarantula tango The researchers speculate that male members of Satyrex may have evolved their huge palps to avoid getting attacked and eaten by females during sex. For many tarantulas, mating is a deadly duel. During such bouts, males strive to inseminate and escape, while females fight to make a meal of their would-be suitors. (See a rare video of tarantula mating.) In nearly all tarantulas, including the new Satyrex species, males have evolved hooks on their front legs that they use to lock the female's fangs in place during mating to stop her from biting them. While these little hooks work for most tarantulas, Zamani suspects they alone are unlikely to protect members of Satyrex from their feisty females. Having huge palps may help male Satyrex spiders maintain a safe(ish) distance from females during mating, he says. 'I think it's a fascinating hypothesis that is very testable,' says Chrissie Painting, a behavioral ecologist who studies mating systems at the University of Waikato in New Zealand. Painting, who was not involved with the study, says these spiders may be in the midst of an evolutionary arms race, with females evolving to become more aggressive in order to snag a snack that can sustain them in motherhood and males evolving better means of mating with them without getting eaten. While more research is needed to confirm this, Painting says, sexual cannibalism is a strong driver of evolution. In other spider species with sexual cannibalism, Painting points out, males have evolved the ability to transfer sperm extremely quickly to reduce their chances of getting eaten while getting it on. (Meet the tarantula named after Johnny Cash.) Having longer leg-like genitals may help male Satyrex tarantulas (Satyrex arabicus shown) keep a safe distance from feisty females during sex. Photograph By Mohssin Fageeh A broader web of spider diversity Zamani and his colleagues were surprised that the spiders they described in this study had gone undiscovered for so long. But our planet is home to over 1,000 species of tarantulas, and many have yet to be found. 'The reality is that the vast majority of Earth's biodiversity remains undocumented,' he says. When it comes to the range of weird spiders yet to be discovered, these tarantulas may just be the tip.
Gizmodo
2 days ago
- Gizmodo
Record-Setting Tarantulas Boast Longest Sex Organs to Avoid Getting Eaten by Females
Researchers have just identified four new species of tarantulas whose genitals are so long they had to make a new biological classification for them. Meet the Satyrex ferox, S. arabicus, S. somalicus, and S. speciosus. They hail from the Arabian Peninsula and the Horn of Africa and are so different from their closest relatives—on both the morphological and molecular level—that the team created a new genus for them, Satyrex. 'The genus name is a combination of Satyr, a part-man, part-beast entity from Greek mythology known for his exceptionally large genitals, and the Latin rēx, meaning king,' the researchers wrote in a study published last month in the journal ZooKeys. Like Satyrs, the males of the four new species, as well as a fifth Satyrex species, have the longest known palps of all tarantulas. Palps are limbs that male spiders use to, among other things, transfer sperm while mating. Technically, palps are not penises but rather secondary sex organs. Satyrex ferox, whose legspan is around 5.5 inches (14 centimeters), has male palps up to 2 inches long (5 cm). For comparison, that's almost as long as its longest legs. Since male spiders, unlike male humans, probably don't go around comparing their nether regions to each other, what's the point of adorning such lengthy junk? For S. ferox specifically, 'we have tentatively suggested that the long palps might allow the male to keep a safer distance during mating and help him avoid being attacked and devoured by the highly aggressive female,' Alireza Zamani, lead author of the study and an arachnologist from the University of Turku, said in a Pensoft blog post (Pensoft published ZooKeys). Yes, you read that right. View this post on Instagram'This species is highly defensive. At the slightest disturbance, it raises its front legs in a threat posture and produces a loud hissing sound by rubbing specialized hairs on the basal segments of the front legs against each other,' Zamani added. In fact, ferox means 'fierce.' In other words, Zamani and colleagues suggest S. ferox may have evolved to have such long genitals because it allows them to have sex without getting eaten by their partner. Talk about a love bite. In comparison, the other species' names are more boring. Researchers named S. speciosus for their beautiful colors and S. arabicus and S. somalicus for their regions of origin. According to the study, the new genus also includes a fifth Satyrex—a known species previously classified in the genus Monocentropus, now called S. longimanus. 'The much longer palps of S. longimanus and the four newly described species were among the primary characters that led us to establish a new genus for these spiders, rather than place them in Monocentropus,' Zamani concludes. 'So yes, at least in tarantula taxonomy, it seems that size really does matter.'
Miami Herald
4 days ago
- Miami Herald
Four new tarantula species — with massive genitalia — discovered. Take a look
Residents of the Arabian Peninsula and Horn of Africa are no strangers to tarantulas, but four newly discovered species in the region are changing the way researchers look at this group of spiders. The large arachnids may look like any normal tarantula from first glance — long, sturdy legs, hair covering their bodies and two shorter legs at the front of the body poised to grab unsuspecting prey. But under a closer inspection, this group of tarantulas has one feature that sets it apart from anything ever discovered before. The male spiders have massive genitalia. The new species were categorized as a new genus, or group of species that share similar physical and genetic characteristics, according to a study published July 22 in the peer-reviewed journal ZooKeys. 'Based on both morphological and molecular data, they are so distinct from their closest relatives that we had to establish an entirely new genus to classify them, and we named it Satyrex,' study author Alireza Zamani said in an Aug. 4 news release from Pensoft, ZooKeys' publisher. Satyrex is derived from the Greek legend 'Satyr,' a half-man, half-beast known for 'his exceptionally large genitals,' and the Latin 'rex,' meaning king, according to the study. The first new species, Satyrex ferox, or the Dhofar black tarantula, was found in burrows at the bottom of shrubs or between rocks in southeastern Yemen and southwestern Oman, researchers said. Live specimens were photographed and posted in the taxonomy social networking platform iNaturalist, which helped researchers determine its geographic range, according to the study. 'This species is highly defensive. At the slightest disturbance, it raises its front legs in a threat posture and produces a loud hissing sound by rubbing specialized hairs on the basal segments of the front legs against each other,' Zamani said in the release. It is also the largest of the four new species, reaching about 5.5 inches across, researchers said. The male palp, or the male genitalia, reach a length of nearly 2 inches long, making the genitalia longer than the front portion of the tarantulas body, and almost as long as its longest legs, researchers said. These massive palps, also seen in the other three new species, are the longest ever seen in tarantulas, and may give the males some extra protection from their female partners, according to the study. The long genitalia 'facilitate copulation while minimising the risk of cannibalism, as it allows the male to position himself slightly away from the female rather than directly beneath her,' according to the study. The other new species include the Arabian black tarantula, Satyrex arabicus, the Somali blonde tarantula, Satyrex speciosus, and the Somali dwarf tarantula, Satyrex somalicus, researchers said. All of the species are fossorial, meaning they build burrows in the sand and dirt around shrubs and rocks in their various regions. The Arabian black tarantula and the Somali dwarf tarantula were named for their countries or origin, respectively, while the Somali blonde tarantula was named for its light and 'beautiful' coloration, according to the study. Another tarantula, Satyrex longimanus from Yemen, was also grouped into the genus, despite being originally described under a different genus in 1903, according to the release. 'Satyrex longimanus, despite also having an elongated palp, was formerly classified in the genus Monocentropus, where the male palp is only about 1.6 times the length of the carapace and well within the typical range of 1.5 to 2 times seen in tarantulas,' Zamani said. 'The much longer palps of S. longimanus and the four newly described species were among the primary characters that led us to establish a new genus for these spiders, rather than place them in Monocentropus. 'So yes, at least in tarantula taxonomy, it seems that size really does matter,' Zamani concluded. The research team includes Zamani, Volker von Wirth, Přemysl Fabiánek, Jonas Höfling, Pavel Just, Jan Korba, Alice Petzold, Mark Stockmann, Hassan Sh Abdirahman Elmi, Miguel Vences and Vera Opatova.
