LOOK: 'Lost' gecko species rediscovered in Mpumalanga
It's been 33 years since anyone has last seen this little fella.
Hearing about the extinction or endangerment of species has become quite common news.
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We rarely get good news about a lost species being found again!
Unfortunately, no one has found any living dinosaurs or dodos yet, but scientists and researchers have been finding "missing" animals worldwide.
Just like the story of the Blyde River Flat Gecko.
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The Afroedura rondavelica, commonly known as the Blyde River Flat Gecko, was discovered by Dr Niels Jacobsen in 1991.
He collected two specimens, and these geckos were not further documented in the following decades.
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According to the Endangered Wildlife Trust (EWT), this gecko is rare because it is a microendemic species. A microendemic species is only found in a limited area or one single location.
The Blyde River Flat Gecko has proven to be quite evasive given its hard-to-access habitat.
The general lack of information regarding the species, taxonomic uncertainty surrounding it, and the possibility that it may have gone extinct, resulted in this species being listed as Data Deficient in the latest IUCN Red List of Threatened Species assessment.
EWT researchers John Davis and Dr Darren Pietersen finally got the go-ahead to visit the area and were overjoyed to find that the species was still alive.
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It took them two years to get the necessary permits, and they were flown to the site via helicopter with pilot Jana Meyer of Hope for Wildlife.
They confirmed not only that the species had survived, but also the morphological, and therefore taxonomic, distinctness of the species.
This is not the only South African species to be "found" again.
According to News24, four other species have been rediscovered in recent years, which include:
- he Branch's rain frog in 2023,
- the Orange-tailed sandveld lizard in 2022,
- the Pennington's blue butterfly in 2021,
- and the De Winton's golden mole in 2023.
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Main image courtesy of Endangered Wildlife Trust