Occurrence of Morphological Abnormalities in the Flat-Tailed House Gecko Hemidactylus platyurus (Schneider, 1792) (Reptilia, Sauria, Gekkonidae) in the Cities of South-East Asia (Bangkok, Phnom Penh, Vientiane)

The paper presents the results of the study on morphological abnormalities in Hemidactylus platyurus, which inhabit large cities in Southeast Asia (Bangkok, Phnom Penh, Vientiane). When processing 1377 specimens of H. platyurus in the cities under study, 87 individuals were found to have some type of abnormality Pas = 6.32%. In the marked deviation groups, individuals with limb abnormalities (Pas = 5.30%) are most common; in the group of other abnormalities (Pas = 1.56%), tail bifurcation and skin neoplasms are approximately equally distributed. In the cities under study, a rare group is head morphoses (Pas = 0.22%), in which a single case of microagnathia was noted. The alignment of the diversity of abnormalities and the proportion of rare morphs among males and females shows a uniform distribution of morphoses in the group with an equal probability of detection among males and females. The analysis showed that there are no significant (p 0.05) differences in the manifestation of morphological abnormalities depending on the biotope (walls, trees). The analysis of intra-urban (centre and outskirts) and inter-urban features in the manifestation of morphological abnormalities revealed highly significant differences (p 0.05). The results of the analysis indicate the specificity of the urban environment associated with the level of urbanization and the formation of a large variety of biotopes within cities.