dan686's Identifications

Not sure what to make of this one, found in a very isolated little area of creviced schist rock in the Waitaki Valley, between 20-30 km inland and only about 1 km south of the Waitaki River. Its size (SVL around 55-60 mm) would suggest an Alps (a number of adults including gravid females seen, confirming they are small), but its deep yellow eyes, toe shape and general colour pattern are quite unlike the Alps' among greywacke further west in the same valley, and I don't know of any alps anywhere having deep yellow eyes. Korero geckos are off to the south in the Kakanui Mts system, but although small for their species there they are still distinctly bigger then these ones and with rather different patterning. If I had to guess I'd probably go with aberrant Southern Alps gecko, maybe with some korero genetic influence? Superficially they're a little like the schist gecko, but surely much too isolated to be a population of them.