Subdigital integumentary microstructure in Cyrtodactylus (Squamata: Gekkota): do those lineages with incipiently expressed toepads exclusively exhibit adhesive setae?

• Philipp Ginal,
• Yannick Ecker,
• Timothy Higham,
• L. Lee Grismer,
• Benjamin Wipfler,
• Dennis Rödder,
• Anthony Russell and
• Jendrian Riedel

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2026, 17, 38–56, doi:10.3762/bjnano.17.4

• significantly among both microstructure types and ecotypes. Keywords: ecomorphology; evolution; habitat-specific adaptations; microfibrils; microornamentation; reptiles; toepad evolution; Introduction How a species’ habitat influences its mode of locomotion and how species adapt to effectively traverse and

• evolutionary relationship between subdigital microstructure and macroscopically defined incipient toepads and (b) uncover potential habitat-specific adaptations. We hypothesise (1) that species with incipiently expressed toepads will possess setae, while species showing no trends towards macroscopical scale