The black-eyed gecko, Hoplodactylus kahutarae, is a species of alpine gecko

Gecko

Geckos are lizards belonging to the infraorder Gekkota, found in warm climates throughout the world. They range from 1.6 cm to 60 cm....

 endemic to New Zealand

New Zealand

New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...

. The specific epithet, "kahutarae", is taken from "Kahutara saddle", the locale where the type specimen was found. The holotype

Holotype

A holotype is a single physical example of an organism, known to have been used when the species was formally described. It is either the single such physical example or one of several such, but explicitly designated as the holotype...

 is in the collection of the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa

Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa

The Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa is the national museum and art gallery of New Zealand, located in Wellington. It is branded and commonly known as Te Papa and Our Place; "Te Papa Tongarewa" is broadly translatable as "the place of treasures of this land".The museum's principles...

.

The black-eyed gecko is named for its unusually melanised irises. These could be an evolutionary response to a higher UV alpine environment above 1300m, but nocturnal habit and other newly discovered alpine geckos without this feature do not support this

External links

• Hoplodactylus kahutarae at the IUCN Red List
  IUCN Red List
  The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species , founded in 1963, is the world's most comprehensive inventory of the global conservation status of biological species. The International Union for Conservation of Nature is the world's main authority on the conservation status of species...