Sphaerodactylus richardi, also known commonly as Richard's banded sphaero or the Zapata big-scaled sphaero, is a small species of gecko, a lizard in the family Sphaerodactylidae. The species is endemic to Cuba.
Etymology The specific name, richardi, is in honor of American herpetologist Richard Thomas.Beolens, Bo; Watkins, Michael; Grayson, Michael (2011). The Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles. Baltimore, Maryland: Johns Hopkins University Press. xiii + 296 pp. . (Sphaerodactylus richardi, p. 221).
Taxonomy Sphaerodactylus richardi belongs to the scaber group. Other species in the group are S. oliveri, S. scaber, and S. storeyae.Hedges & Garrido (1993).
Description Sphaerodactylus richardi may attain a snout-to-vent length (SVL) of . It has large non-overlapping dorsal scales, except for a zone of mid-dorsal granular scales which is three scales wide. Adults have a dorsal color pattern of 5-6 bold dark crossbands on the body.
Habitat The preferred habitats of S. richardi are forest, shrubland, and marine intertidal.
Reproduction Sphaerodactylus richardi is oviparous.
References
Further reading Hedges SB, Garrido OH (1993). "A New Species of Gecko (Sphaerodactylus) from Central Cuba". Journal of Herpetology 27 (3): 300–306. (Sphaerodatylus richardi, new species). (in English, with an abstract in Spanish). Rösler H (2000). "Kommentierte Liste der rezent, subrezent und fossil bekannten Geckotaxa (Reptilia: Gekkonomorpha)". Gekkota 2: 28–153. (Sphaerodactylus richardi, p. 114). (in German).