A new species of the subgenus Japonigekko (Squamata, Gekkonidae, Gekko) from Luanchuan County, Henan Province, China

This study describes a new gecko species, Gekko luanchuanensis sp. nov ., from Luanchuan County, Henan Province, China. Morphologically, the new species can be distinguished from its congeners of the subgenus Japonigekko by the following combination of morphological characters: (1) body size moderate; (2) nostrils fused with the snout scale; (3) interorbitals 23–25; (4) tubercles small and sparse, with dorsal tubercles not forming rows at midbody; (5) midbody scale rows 141–157; (6) ventral scale rows 35–37; (7) limbs with an absence of tubercles; (8) subdigital lamellae numbers 9–11 on finger I, 10–14 on finger IV, 9–10 on toe I, and 9–13 on toe IV; (9) webbing absent; (10) precloacal pores 6–8; (11) postcloacal tubercles two on each side; (12) 6–8 dark-gray stripes on the dorsum. Phylogenetic analyses of concatenated mitochondrial 16S ribosomal RNA (16S) and Cytochrome b (Cytb) gene fragments revealed that this new species forms an independent clade with strong support, and the most closely related species is Gekko swinhonis , with an uncorrected p -distance of 13.99%. The discovery of the new species increases the number of recognized Gekko species worldwide to 102, the number of species worldwide in the subgenus Japonigekko to 40, and the number of Japonigekko species in China to 28.