The Moorish gecko, Tarentola mauritanica Linnaeus, 1758 (Squamata, Phyllodactylidae), in Albania

Abstract

We summarised the records of Tarentola mauritanica in Albania. The first record for the country was published in 1989 from Sazan Island; however, it was never confirmed again. Another population was found recently in an urban habitat of Vlorë City near the main city port, probably of human-mediated origin.

Colonization routes uncovered in a widely introduced Mediterranean gecko, Tarentola mauritanica (Squamata: Phyllodactylidae)

“…Because this species is frequently associated with humanized infrastructures, accidental introductions into new areas have been reported. For instance, many of the populations of the Northern Mediterranean are likely to have been introduced in ancient times e.g., 10,11−15 , contrary to some insular populations from the Mediterranean e.g., 16,17−20 and Macaronesia e.g., 21,22 , and the ones from the New World e.g., 23,24−28 , which result from recent introductions.…”

One gecko’s pain is another gecko’s gain: is the Moorish geckoTarentola mauritanicabecoming invasive in France?

“…The discovery of T. mauritanica in new localities is often attributed to recent accidental introductions by humans, particularly on islands (e.g. Jesus et al, 2008;Barreiros et al, 2010;Mačát et al, 2014;Deso et al, 2020;Rato et al, 2021;Strachinis et al, 2023). The species has become established in very distant areas from its native range, such as Mexico (Ortiz-Medina et al, 2019), Argentina (Baldo et al, 2008;Díaz-Fernández et al, 2019), Uruguay (Baldo et al, 2008), California (Mahrdt, 1998) and Florida (Rochford & Krysko, 2019).…”

Invasion history of the Moorish Gecko, <i>Tarentola mauritanica</i> (Squamata: Phyllodactylidae), in the USA, with new records of an established population in Texas

“…Tarentola mauritanica has been introduced at numerous localities across the globe (Lever 2003), including sites both relatively proximate (e.g., Mizerakis and Strachinis 2017;Strachinis and Pafilis 2018;Deso et al 2020) and those at much greater distances from its native range, such as the Americas. For example, T. mauritanica has been introduced in Argentina (Navas 1987;Cabrera and Guerra 2006;Díaz-Fernández et al 2019), Chile (Arredondo andNúñez 2014), Mexico (Ortiz-Medina et al 2019), Uruguay (Achaval and Gudynas 1983), and the USA.…”