There's a SUPER Rare SUPER Secret New Zealand gecko that i bet only handful of people knows about them.
I can't find a good source to learn about them. I want to know more about them cuz all I know is that their back is rusty red, they're Big (definitely), they live in New Zealand, and they don't originate in New Zealand.
You're the only one that I know that can find a good source of this Gecko. Please help learn them more, they fascinates me 🥺🙏💙💙💙💙
This species is only known from a museum specimen that had been tucked away for many decades. It did not have records of its origin.
It was originally thought, because it resembled a large, now extinct, gecko from Maori oral history, that it was most likely from New Zealand. This was believed for a long time. It does seem to match the description.
Illustration by Peter Schouten (A Gap in Nature)
However certain anatomical features, and a later DNA sequencing suggest that it was actually from New Caledonia, where its closest genetic relatives live. This is most likely not the large lizard from precolonial New Zealand (the kawekaweau)... but it's possible.
The stuffed specimen has a snout vent length of 37 cm (14.6 in) and a total length of up to 60 cm (23.6 in), making it the largest known species of gecko.
All evidence points to this animal having gone extinct by sometime in the mid-1800s, most likely before colonization of New Caledonia.
Delcourt's Gecko (Gigarcanum delcourti), family Diplodactylidae
photograph by Muséum d'histoire naturelle
