Tiny creature with ‘cone-shaped’ head found in Venezuela forest. It’s a new species

On a forest trail in northern Venezuela, a small creature with a “cone-shaped” head darted in and out of the leaves. Something about it caught the attention of passing scientists — and for good reason.

It turned out to be a new species.

Researchers first noticed the “tiny lizard” in 2002 while walking along a footpath in the Paria Peninsula, according to a study published Oct. 16 in the peer-reviewed Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society. The lizard “immediately disappeared” into the leaves, but researchers managed to catch it and later identified it as a known species.

Over a decade later in 2014, the researchers returned to “the same patch of forest” and found three more of these small lizards, the study said.

Intrigued, they took a closer look at the animals and soon realized they’d discovered a new species: Pseudogonatodes fuscofortunatus, or the lucky brown miniaturized gecko.

Lucky brown miniaturized geckos can reach about 2.6 inches in length, the study said. They have “pointed,” “cone-shaped” heads with “long” snouts and “long” fingers and toes with sheathed claws.

Photos show the “chocolate brown” coloring of the new species. Darker black spots dot its back, while its sides have a slightly paler cream hue.

A close-up photo shows the gecko’s orange-ringed eyes and almost angry-looking expression.

Lucky brown miniaturized geckos were found “active on the ground” of a humid forest trail during the day, the study said. The surrounding area had “many suitable hiding places for these tiny lizards.”

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Researchers said they named the new species “fuscofortunatus” after the Latin words “fuscus,” meaning “brown,” and “fortunatus,” meaning “lucky or fortunate,” because of “the lucky occasion of the discovery of this small brown gecko, which had gone unnoticed by other naturalists and explorers who visited these mountains over the previous century.”

So far, the new species has only been at one site in the Paria Peninsula, a small stretch of land along the northern coast of Venezuela and roughly 300 miles east of Caracas, the study said.

The new species was identified by its skeleton, skull shape, toes, scale pattern and body size, the study said. DNA analysis found the new species had at least 10% genetic divergence from other related geckos.

The research team included Walter Schargel, Cristian Hernández-Morales, Juan Daza, Michael Jowers, Andrés Camilo Montes-Correa, Mayke De Freitas, Kathryn Sullivan, Tony Gamble, Aaron Bauer and Gilson Rivas.

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