GIANTGECKOS

Nuu Ana Painteds

In 1995, Frank Fast and I explored a tiny island south of the Isle of Pines. It had dry (sclerophyll) forest with trees covering only a small portion of the island where the top of the canopy was under 15 feet and the main trunk from five to seven feet tall. It seemed an unlikely place for finding leachianus. Yet, we did find five including a thin specimen that was stretched out during the day at the foot of a pandanus root. We returned in 1997 to find the island, a stop for fishermen, invaded with a species of ant which nested in tree hollows and crawled around everywhere.

Where one would have expected to find geckos we found ants including in egg laying sites. We collected a few geckos as well as a sample of the ants to bring to ORSTOM for identification. It turned out to be an introduced species. We alerted them that the geckos there would probably become extinct. While we found Bavayia geckos there on our first trip, we found none on our second trip. The leachianus from Nuu Anan are striking animals and unique enough to deserve in our opinion subspecies status. They were the first ecotype 3 leachianus discovered. We mentioned Nuu Ana Geckos in an article in the Vivarium as Island G geckos. Since that publication Henkel and Seipp mentioned them in their book on Rhacodactylus and indicate that the ecological situation on Nuu Ana, as predicted has worsened.

Features of Nuu Ana painteds include

Small size particularly of females compared to other leachianus
Short tails
Foreshortened snout
Females have very slender heads
Females have large cloacal pouches which make them difficult to distinguish form males unless one looks for preanal pores and enlarged spurs in males.
High incidence of tilted pupil in females giving impression females are looking up at sky.
Background often a uniform green in males, generally greenish or a pale yellow green.
Large bold high contrast clearly defined pure white blotches with crisp black speckling.
Bright cadmium yellow spotting is common on the dorsum and/or on the belly.
Distinct pattern on sides of ventrum
Early maturing. In captivity will commonly breed at two years if raised under optimal conditions
Babies with very high contrast pattern usually with some orange banding.
Very docile.

Conclusion: This variety of R. leachianus along with Nuu Ami mossy's are by far and large the most beautiful of the species and very promising for selective breeding. They are by now either exticnt or near extinct in the wild. This morph is a must for thsoe wanting to breed more colorful lines. We have hybridized Nuu Ana painteds with other rare island forms and have had very positive results. Because of their small size they cannot be hybridized with Grande Terre geckos. We hybridized them with island forms and then crossed these larger animals (males) with small female Grande Terre. This is the stuff a herpetoculturist's dreams are made of. Imagine geckos with the size of Grande Terre but the color and pattern of select Nuu Anas.