Morphology

Outside of a few distinguishing factors, U.sameiti closely resembles U.sikorae. So much so in fact they are often mistaken during collection and end up in the US market as U.sikorae. U.sameiti, however, are slightly largers and significantly more elongated than U.sikorae. Males tend to reach a maximum length of 8-9″ while females seem to peak at 7-8″. Both males and females have varying degrees of cryptic patterns that resembles varying mosses, lichens, bark etc.

Range

 

Species or Subspecies?

While little is documented in regards to an official description, Uroplatus sameiti is increasingly being recognized as it’s own species over it’s previous classification as a subspecies of Uroplatus sikorae, Uroplatus sikorae sameiti. Uroplatus sameiti has been considered a good species since Raxworthy et al treated it as such in 2006 in their paper titled “Predicting species distributions…”. In 2008, the molecular results published in their “Continental speciation in the tropics…” paper support U.sameiti as a good species as well.

 

Throat Color

One way to distinguish U.sameiti from U.sikorae is check the buccal mucous membrane (located at the back of the mouth/throat). U.sameiti will have a uniformly flesh colored buccal membrane while that of U.sikorae will be black.