Family Sphaerodactylidae
Sphaerodactylus grandisquamis guarionex Stejneger, 1904
Figure 3E
Materials examined. PUERTO RICO – Arecibo • Mata de Plátano Field Station and Nature Reserve; 18.414, -66.729; 151 m above sea level; Justin Matthew Bernstein, Camilo Andrés Calderón-Acevedo, Pedro Ivo Mônico, Lázaro Willian Viñola-Lopez, J. Angel Soto-Centeno; Individual 1 – under palm trash on side of trail ~15 m south of field station at 10:30 PM; Individual 2 – under palm trash on side of trail ~15 m south of field station at ~8:30 AM; Individual 3 – found on top of leaf litter in open field 75 m south of field station at 6:20 PM; Individuals 4–10 – found on top of leaf litter in open field 85 m south of field station at 6:30 PM; Individual 11 – found on top of leaf litter in open field 85 m south of field station at 7:35 PM; Individuals 12 – 16 – found on top of leaf litter in open field 85 m south of field station at 9:50 AM; Individuals 18–22 – found on top of leaf litter in open field 85 m south of field station at 2:50 PM
Identification. The only species of Sphaerodactylus on the northern part of mainland Puerto Rico are S. g. guarionex andS. klauberi (sensu Daza et al. 2019). Sphaerodactylus g. guarionex is distinguished from S. klauberi by its smaller size and lighter color (larger total length and snout-vent-length and dark, near-black color in S. klauberi ); S. g. guarionex is distinguished by other subspecies of S. grandisquamis by its reduced number of dorsal body scales (~14 for S. g. guarionex , 17–23 in S. g. grandisquamis , S. g. spanius , S. g. mimetes , and S. g. ateles ) and rounded snout scales (Daza et al. 2019). Molecular and morphological data from recent studies support the claim that Sphaerodactylus in the northern part of the mainland are S. g. guarionex or S. klauberi (Daza et al. 2019; Reynolds et al. 2021).