Researchers have confirmed the presence of a rare gecko species atop an isolated South African mountain, accessible only by helicopter, more than 30 years after it was last seen.

The Blyde rondawels flat gecko (Afroedura rondavelica), with its distinct golden eyes and dark-banded tail with a purplish sheen, was previously known only from two male specimens collected in 1991 by South African herpetologist Niels Jacobsen on the same mountaintop.

In April this year, Darren Pietersen and John Davies of the Endangered Wildlife Trust, a South Africa-based conservation NGO, were dropped off by helicopter on the summit of the mountain, one of three distinct, conical peaks in Blyde River Canyon Nature Reserve.

No one knew for certain whether the geckos still survived. But just after midnight on the first night of their three-day survey, Pietersen and Davies spotted the first individual.

“We were absolutely ecstatic,” Pietersen told Mongabay.

The duo eventually saw about 20 individuals during their survey. While they couldn’t estimate the gecko’s population size, its numbers appear to be “fairly sizable,” Pietersen said, adding there could be several hundred present on the mountain. “It’s certainly not at risk of going extinct in the immediate future.”

Planning the trip, including securing permits from provincial authorities to access the mountaintop, took Pietersen two years. The permits allowed Pieterson and Davies to collect five individual geckos as museum specimens and a tiny tail tip from a sixth for genetic analysis. The geckos’ tails regenerate within about a month, and the DNA samples will help confirm whether they represent a distinct species, Pietersen said.

Since the collection of the first two males in 1991, there had been speculation the individuals were juveniles of the closely related Mariepskop flat gecko (Afroedura maripi), which inhabits the slopes of the nearby Mariepskop mountain.

But Pietersen said Mariepskop flat geckos are more robust with a purple sheen across their entire bodies, while the geckos he examined were smaller, slimmer, and only had purple skin on their tails. “I am absolutely 100% convinced that these are a distinct species.”

Werner Conradie, a herpetologist at Port Elizabeth Museum, who wasn’t part of Pietersen’s team, told Mongabay that “habitat specialist species” like those restricted to isolated mountain peaks or forest patches tend to occupy very narrow environmental niches and are particularly vulnerable to climate change.

Compounding this vulnerability is the difficulty of locating such species.

“It is hard for us to find them, and it takes years, if not decades, before we get the opportunity to do so — and in that time they might have gone extinct,” Conradie said.

Conradie also praised the efforts of a new generation of South African herpetologists working to document the country’s reptiles, including rare and long-unseen species. Among them is the Leolo flat gecko (Afroedura leoloensis), recorded in 2022 by Gary Kyle Nicolau and Ruan Stander after 37 years.

Banner image of a Blyde rondawels flat gecko, courtesy of the Endangered Wildlife Trust.