Golden-eyed creature with ‘slender’ body found inside temple cave. It’s a new species

Inside a temple cave in Thailand, a “slender” creature with “large,” golden eyes perched on the wall. Visiting scientists spotted the scaly animal hiding in plain sight — and discovered a new species.

Researchers visited the cave-turned-Buddhist-temple in Lopburi Province in 2022 to document its wildlife. Their previous work in the region had led to multiple new discoveries and prompted them to return, according to a study published Sept. 20 in the peer-reviewed journal Zootaxa.

During the nighttime surveys, researchers found several unfamiliar-looking lizards inside the temple cave, the study said. They captured a few and quickly realized they’d discovered a new species: Cyrtodactylus panitvongi, or the Lopburi bent-toed gecko.

Lopburi bent-toed geckos can reach about 6.5 inches in length, the study said. They have “slender” bodies, “long” toes and “robust” claws. Their “long” heads have “large,” shiny eyes.

A photo shared by Zootaxa on X, formerly Twitter, shows the new species . Its coloring is a mixture of creams and browns. Black and brown bands run across its back and tail.

Another photo shared on Facebook by Speleological Research in Thailand shows a female Lopburi bent-toed gecko with a darker, more olive brown coloring.

A third set of photos shared by Novataxa on Facebook show a gecko with a paler yellow color.

Lopburi bent-toed geckos live around the entrance of a Buddhist temple cave, the study said. The cave had several “modifications” for worshipers such as tiled floors, concrete fillings, artificial lighting and man-made clearings.

Unlike other cave-dwelling geckos, the new species “avoids these artificial substrates and stays on vertical surfaces and within crevices of natural cave walls,” researchers said. These artificial changes along with “the numerous visitors and the nuisances they generate … certainly perturb the habits of the geckos living in the cave” and constitute “the main threats to its future.”

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Researchers said they named the new species “panitvongi” after Nonn Panitvong, a “Thai zoologist, conservationist and photographer,” for his research contributions.

The Lopburi bent-toed gecko’s common name refers to the province where it was discovered and, so far, the only area where it has been found, the study said. Lopburi province is in central Thailand and a roughly 100-mile drive northeast of Bangkok.

The new species was “easy to differentiate” because of its scale pattern, size, coloring and other subtle physical features, the study said. Researchers did not provide a DNA analysis of the new species.

The research team included Olivier Pauwels, Natthaphat Chotjuckdikul, Nattasuda Donbundit, Montri Sumontha and Worawitoo Meesook.

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