Institut Català de Paleontologia Miquel Crusafont, Cerdanyola del Vallès, Barcelona, Spain.
PeerJ. 2023 Jan 13;11:e14717. doi: 10.7717/peerj.14717. eCollection 2023.
After its original description, the Middle Miocene gekkotan remained an enigma for palaeontologists due to a rather poor knowledge of its osteology and relationships. Coming from a single locality in southern Germany, this gecko lived in central Europe during a period when a single gekkotan lineage (., euleptine sphaerodactylids) is confidently reported to have inhabited the continent. However, it is unclear whether . may represent a member of this same lineage or a second clade of Gekkota. In order to shed light on this issue, the type material of . is here redescribed, refigured and extensively compared with extinct and extant geckos from Europe. A phylogenetic analysis is also conducted in order to investigate its relationships. The new observations confirm the validity of the German species as a distinct taxon, and exclude the previously-suggested chimeric status of the type material of this gecko (with the exception of a single dentary included in the type series, which clearly belong to a different lizard). Phylogenetic relationships of are still unclear, though, with different positions within the gekkotan tree recovered for the taxon. Nevertheless, it is confidently supported as a non-eublepharid gekkonoid, in agreement with hypothesys presented by other scholars.
中中新世的壁虎类（Gekkota）在最初被描述之后，由于对其骨骼结构和系统发育关系的了解相当有限，古生物学家对其一直感到困惑。这种壁虎来自德国南部的一个单一地点，生活在欧洲中部一个时期，当时只有一个壁虎谱系（即 euleptine 球趾壁虎）被自信地报道栖息在该大陆上。然而，尚不清楚 是否代表同一谱系的成员，还是壁虎类的第二个分支。为了阐明这个问题，本文重新描述、重新绘制并广泛比较了 的模式标本与来自欧洲的已灭绝和现生物种。还进行了系统发育分析，以研究其亲缘关系。新的观察结果证实了德国物种作为一个独特分类群的有效性，并排除了以前关于这种壁虎模式标本的嵌合体状态的建议（除了包括在模式系列中的单个下颌骨，该下颌骨显然属于不同的蜥蜴）。然而， 的系统发育关系仍然不清楚，尽管在壁虎类树中为该分类群恢复了不同的位置。尽管如此，它被自信地支持为非球趾壁虎的壁虎类，与其他学者提出的假说一致。
