Small question about geckos...

[lizardminion]

What features or characteristics make a lizard qualified to be classified in the family Gekkonidae? I know most have adhesive toe pads and unmovable eyelids, but not all. Geckos of the Eublepharinae subfamily lack these features of other geckos, and it has me wondering, what still makes them geckos?

 

[Niffarious]

Some primates have tails, but those that do not are still primates. You can see all the other characteristics that make the non-tailed ones still primates. Even though a lemur looks so different from a human, we recognize them both to be primates. This comes down to many anatomical features as well as DNA.

The same can be said of these geckos - Eublepharinae are a primitive group, but still have many other features that make them geckos. There are many families of geckos that lack the adhesive pads but are still instantly recognizable as a gecko.

Did you know there are some geckos that are actually completely legless?

 

[jayefbe]

In biology, a family (or other taxonomic group) should reflect the evolutionary history and relationship of the group (it doesn't always due to errors, but that is the intended goal of a named group of species). A family is NOT based upon morphological features (or DNA). Rather, morphological features are merely used to aid in identification and differentiation, and DNA only reflects the evolutionary relationship (again, that will also depend on which regions of the genome you are analyzing). A species is not a member of a specific family because they have a certain trait. They are a member of a family because they are more closely related to every other member of that family than they are to any species outside of that family.

Sorry that doesn't answer your question. I'm not sure what traits are specific to Gekkonidae, but again, geckos are called geckos because they all share a certain trait. They are geckos because all geckos are more closely related to each other than to any other lizard.

 

[Niffarious]

JFB - I agree with you almost 100%, but I read Ryan's question as a 'how to identify' sort of thing.

I don't mean to split hairs, so please clarify for me - how could one identify the evolutionary history without morphological features and/or DNA? Especially in the case of extinct species. If we use these features to identify and differentiate species, is that not part of what we use to classify them? We can trace evolutionary features only because of these things. I suppose what I am saying is that to me, they are essentially part of the same package.