Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Can anyone tell me if this gecko sub species actually still exists (other than in jars)???

I think you may be getting confused. There is no "Eublepharis macularius hardwickii". "Eublepharis" addresses the moveable/closeable eyelids and I think "macularius" means 'spotted'.

"Eublepharis macularius" is what we commonly call the "Leopard gecko" in the US. There are Eublepharis species from different regions such as E. turkumenicus and E. angramainyu, and also Eublepharis macularius subspecies (Eublepharis m. afghanicus, Eublepharis m. fasciolatus, Eublepharis m. macularius, Eublepharis m. montanus, Eublepharis m. smithi) but some of the subspecies are open to debate due to cross-breeding and modern captive-bred morphology. These guys do reach Eastern India.

"Eublepharis hardwickii" is the Southern Indian leopard gecko or South Indian Fat Tailed gecko. From what I gather, it is restricted to India which would limit inter-subspecies breeding...but I'm not sure that would be possible. There is such limited literature on hardwickii that it seems like a big joke. However, it makes sense that there are South Indian leopard geckos since there are leo equivalents all over the world (Chinese leo, fat tail, etc.) I haven't seen any literature on it lately, but I also haven't seen anything that says the subspecies is extinct. The last thing I found on hardwickii was from 2002 - "Kommentierte Liste der rezent, subrezent und fossil bekannten Geckotaxa" - "A Commentated list of recent, subrecent and fossilized well-known Gekkonidae" (forgive my horrible language skills and spelling!!) A very long time ago, info was published on hardwickii under the synonym "Gymnodactylus lunatus". But I've been unable to find any further information on this. There is also a uromastyx hardwicki from India...its pretty crazy looking!

The Eublepharidae family is very broad so I would think there is quite a bit of genetic differences in these geckos that would make inter-breeding impossible...but I don't understand the genetics behind this well enough to understand exactly why/what the differences are.

I keep several types of Coleonyx (Banded) geckos. These guys are also Eublepharids (eye-lid geckos). From what I understand, these Coleonyx species cannot inter-breed. But I have heard of C. varigatus subspecies succesfully mating (C.v.v, C.v.abotti, i think)

The photo of hardwickii on the internet (that looks like a plastic toy) is supposedly attributed to Yuri Kaverkin - kaverkin@cityline.ru. It looks a bit sketchy to me, but it might be interesting to email him about hardwickii. Sorry that is doesn't fully answer your question. I'd love to hear from anyone that has more information.

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Too many Leos
1.0 feline "Spot"
0.1 canine "Tika"