Guwahati: A new species of diurnal gecko has been discovered from Assam and named Cnemaspis brahmaputra, after the Brahmaputra River.
The species was recorded at Dirgheswari Temple on the northern bank of the river, facing Guwahati.
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Unlike most geckos found in Northeast India, which are nocturnal, Cnemaspis brahmaputra is active during the day. The discovery has been documented in the latest issue of Taprobanica: The Journal of Asian Biodiversity.
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The research was conducted by Amit Sayyed of the Wildlife Protection and Research Society (Maharashtra), A A Thasun Amarasinghe of the Research Centre for Biosystematics and Evolution (Indonesia), Madhurima Das and Rupankar Bhattacharjee of Assam Don Bosco University’s Department of Zoology, and Jayaditya Purkayastha of Help Earth, a biodiversity organisation based in Assam.
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The newly identified species belongs to the Cnemaspis podihuna clade, a group of small, diurnal geckos previously believed to be largely restricted to Sri Lanka. Its presence in Assam supports evidence of ancient biogeographic links between Sri Lanka and Northeast India.
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Cnemaspis brahmaputra differs from its Sri Lankan counterparts in several genetic and morphological aspects. It has a larger body size, fewer mid-body scale rows, more ventral scale rows across the belly, no tubercles on the lower flanks, and three enlarged rows of thigh scales aligned with the femoral scale row.
This is the second known species of the genus Cnemaspis from the Northeast. The first, Cnemaspis assamensis, was described in 2000. Both species are members of the podihuna clade and are found on opposite banks of the Brahmaputra River, with significant genetic differences.
“The Brahmaputra has played a crucial role in shaping the biodiversity of the region,” said Purkayastha. “Naming the species after the river highlights its importance as both a geographical barrier and a corridor for evolutionary processes.”