PRISTURUS FLAVIPUNCTATUS. 57 
long and slender. Tail longer than the body, laterally compressed, in the male 
provided with a strongly serrated dorsal ridge and a corresponding ridge on the ventral 
surface, but less developed ; the dorsal ridge is prolonged on to the dorsal surface of 
the body, in the male as a line of enlarged spiny granules, absent in the female ; in the 
latter the caudal ridges are represented by enlarged granules. Head, body, limbs, and 
tail covered with minute granules, largest on the snout ; granules on the under surface 
of the body equalling those on the snout. 
General colour rather dark greyish brown, with feebly defined darker cross-bars, 
and sometimes with a pale mesial dorsal line, the sides more or less spotted with 
reddish. A fine dark brown band from the rostral through the eye and over the 
temporal region. Lower labials, throat, and sides of the belly finely dark spotted. 
General colour of underparts whitish. 
It attains to about 80 millim. in total length, of which the tail measures 50 millim. 
This gecko is distributed over the great littoral plain at Suakin and Durrur. 
Dr. Penton found a single specimen at Suakin in a hole tenanted by a Varanus griseus 
and by a burrowing toad {Bufo pentoni). It is very active, and frequents not only 
the sandy plain, but rocks and the trunks of trees. Colonel Yerbury states that at 
Aden it is common on the rocks, and at Lahej on the trunks of baboul trees. At 
Assab, in Eritrea, it has also been observed on these trees. 
This species was first found at Massowa by Riippell, and, for many years, the only 
examples in the British Museum were two females presented by the Frankfort Museum. 
In the Catalogue of the former Museum two specimens are referred, with doubt, to 
Syria, as its occurrence in that country is highly improbable. In 1874, Mr. Blanford 
met with it at Maskat in Arabia. Gasco described, in 1876, a specimen collected in the 
Sudan by Dr. Ori, but the exact locality whence it was obtained is unknown. In 1895, 
Mr. Boulenger recorded it from Milmil in Western Somaliland, and in the following 
year from Assab, in Eritrea. In 1895, I mentioned its presence at Aden. It has 
never been observed in the Nile valley proper. 
The length of the hind limb is subject to great variation, irrespective of sex or 
locality, and the fore limb is equally variable. 
A small Acarus of the genus Gekobia infests this gecko. It is probably G. loricata, 
Berlese, and in its bright reddish colour it resembles the similarly-coloured spots found 
on the gecko. 
Mr. Boulenger has recently published a revision of this group in which he recognizes 
seven species \ viz. : — First, P. percristatus, from the same region in which P.flavi- 
punctatus is found ; second, P. JZavipuncfatus itself, the distribution of which has 
already been given ; third, P. rupestris, Blanford, from S.E. Arabia, the shores of 
the Persian Gulf, Sind, and the island of Socotra; fourth, P. insignis, Blanford, 
1 Ann. Mus. Cir. Genov. ser. 2, xvi. (xsxvi.) 5 Giugno, 1896, p. 4. 
