Aristelliger

Aristelliger is a genus of Caribbean geckos in the family Sphaerodactylidae, commonly known as croaking geckos or Caribbean geckos. The nine named species in the genus are native to various islands in the West Indies, though the species A. georgeensis is also found on mainland Belize. Aristelliger species are nocturnal and mostly arboreal, occupying palm tree trunks and other vertical surfaces. They are among the largest neotropical geckos, with A. lar reaching up to 135 mm in snout-vent-length. They are primarily insectivorous, feeding on a variety of arthropods. Cannibalism of eggs and hatchlings has been reported in A. cochranae. A. lar is omnivorous, and may be an important seed disperser for fruits of the plant Marcgravia. Many species of Aristelliger are accustomed to living among human structures, though several are threatened by urban and agricultural development or invasive species.

Aristelliger

Sebastian Serna Muñoz · CC BY 4.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Also called
croacking geckoPBDB
Sits inside
GekkonidaePBDB
Diet
insectivore, carnivorePBDB, for Gekkonidae
Life habit
ground dwellingPBDB, for Gekkonidae
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Amniota

Time the record covers

At most 129 thousand years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 129 ka and 0 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Pleistocene — about 2 of 6 occurrencesPleistoceneHolocene — about 4 of 6 occurrences147 ka–126 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences126 ka–105 ka Mya — about 0.3 occurrences105 ka–84 ka Mya — about 0.3 occurrences84 ka–63 ka Mya — about 0.3 occurrences63 ka–42 ka Mya — about 0.3 occurrences42 ka–21 ka Mya — about 0.3 occurrences21 ka–0 Mya — about 4 occurrences629 ka0 Mya

6 occurrences of Aristelliger on record, most of them in the Holocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.

When

6 occurrences

These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.

Aristelliger and its relatives

Holocene

Where Aristelliger and its relatives were recorded in the Holocene.

Found in the same rock

97 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 6 sites for Aristelliger, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.

This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.

Entered from

3 references

Each of the 6 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Each entry links to doi.org. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content2

Picture of Aristelliger

Credit
Sebastian Serna Muñoz
Licence
CC BY 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

CT scan

Licence
not stated by the source
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
Specimen
Aristelliger cochranae · UF:Herp:21858

Smithsonian Open Access was not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.

The description on this site

Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itGekkonidae through timeFormations of the HoloceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Cope 1861