干旱区生态环境知识资源中心

Hemidactylus agrius is a rare gecko from semi-arid formations of northeastern Brazil. We provide herein relevant information on the natural history of this Neotropical gecko species, regarding inicrohabitat use, sexual dimorphism and feeding habits of a population from a typical semi-arid Caatinga area. The majority of H. agrius were found inactive beneath barks of trees during daylight, evidencing that this kind of microhabitat seem suitable retreat sites. There was no sexual dimorphism for morphological characters of H. agrius, except for body width, with females having wider bodies than males, what might be related to fecundity. The most important consumed prey was orthopterans, and the trophic niche overlap between sexes did not differ from expected by chance. The dietary composition of males and females seems explained neither by differences in head shape nor of dissimilar microhabitat use. Our findings expanded the knowledge on the poorly known H. agrius, thereby contributing to understand the natural history of Hemidactylus lizards with small geographical range.