First record of albinism in the Taragüi Gecko Homonota taragui (Squamata: Phyllodactylidae)

Abstract

Albinism is a rare, congenital, genetically inherited condition characterized by a partial or complete lack of melanin; the pigment that colors the skin, eyes and hair or feathers (López and Ghirardi, 2011). This condition results from the expression of a recessive allele, which causes tyrosinase inactivity, an enzyme involved in melanin biosynthesis (Krecsák, 2008). There are two types of albinism, complete albinism, a condition expressed phenotypically as the complete absence of melanin in the entire body; and partial albinism, when melanin is reduced in the whole body or the absence is located in just one part of the body (Klug and Cummings, 1999). The Taragüi Gecko (Homonota taragui, Cajade, et al., 2013) is a small lizard with a maximum size of 42 mm, characterized by a dark reticulated dorsal pattern on a light background (Figure 1B). As other species of the genus, H. taragui has nocturnal habits, and it is a microhabitat specialist, living under the small rocks that lay on a rocky substrate, and especially in sites where the rocks lay on large, exposed outcrops of quartz sandstone (Cajade et al., 2013; Odriozola, 2014). Homonota taragui has a restricted geographical distribution in three small isolated rock outcrops in the locality Paraje Tres Cerros, Corrientes province, Argentina.