Context: A new species of lizard, the smallest known Indian gekkonid, has been discovered in the Eastern Ghats.
In India, 45 diverse species of Cnemaspis have been found, of which 34 are from the Western Ghats.
The newly discovered dwarf gecko - Cnemaspis avasabinae is the twelfth species to be discovered outside the Western Ghats and also the first species reported from the Velikonda Range in Andhra Pradesh.
It is likely that each hill range or isolated forest patch may have its own species.
The new species was sighted in a dry evergreen forest among the rocks beneath a small stream at a height of less than 200 metres above sea level