On my first night in Malaysia, I saw a few of these arboreal geckos. They were my first Cyrtodactylus geckos, so I was much more excited than my guide Kurt "Orion" G, who has seen zillions of Cyrtodactylus.

My Travelogues and Trip Lists page includes a complete list of the herps I saw in the wild on this trip to Malaysia, as well as a travelogue of the trip.

The species is named for the four parallel dark stripes down the length of the body, which distinguish them from the many other similar-looking Cyrtodactylus species. Or at least that's what many of the references say. In reality, the patterning of this species is highly variable. I must have seen a couple of dozen of these guys in Peninsular Malaysia and none of them sported the classic four parallel dark stripes.

I think that all of the smaller Cyrtodactylus geckos that I saw in Peninsular Malaysia belonged to this species. This species also inhabits Borneo, but I believe that all of the more-or-less identical-looking geckos I saw in Borneo belonged to a different species. Taxonomy is so confusing.

New Cyrtodactylus species are being found/described frequently. It wouldn't surprise me at all if the populations from different isolated mountains were determined to be different species someday.