Wildlife
Geckos are small lizards famous for their ability to walk up walls and other sheer vertical surfaces, and to hang from ceilings. However, they come a cropper if they attempt to climb on non-stick surfaces! They're welcome creatures to have around in the house as they feast on the insects you don't generally want inside.
Scientific name: Gekkonidae
Rank: Family
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Girls are cool
The sex of a leopard gecko's young is determined by egg temperature.
The sex of a leopard gecko's young is determined by egg temperature.
Floating lizard
Unsinkable pygmy geckos avoid drowning in water droplets.
At a million times smaller than T-Rex, the tiny Brazilian pygmy gecko could easily drown in the smallest of puddles… if its skin wasn’t water repellent, that is. Incredibly it doesn’t even break the surface.
Milk and honey
Certain geckos extract sweet honeydew from insects.
Certain geckos extract sweet honeydew from insects.
Evolution in action
An incredible find in the Malaysian jungle shows a gecko splitting into two species.
An incredible find in the Malaysian jungle shows a gecko splitting into two species.
Gorgeous gecko
A new species is found right on the expedition doorstep.
Just a stone's throw from the scientists' camp, a new species of gecko is found. Eggs seen through its transparent underbelly identify that it's a female, though the species is unknown. Banded tail markings camouflage it effectively against a tree.
The shading illustrates the diversity of this group - the darker the colour the greater the number of species. Data provided by WWF's Wildfinder.
Geckos are lizards belonging to the infraorder Gekkota, found in warm climates throughout the world. They range from 1.6 cm to 60 cm. Most geckos cannot blink. They have a fixed lens within each iris that enlarges in darkness.
Geckos are unique among lizards in their vocalizations. They use chirping sounds in social interactions with other geckos. They are the most species-rich group of lizards, with approximately 1,500 different species worldwide. The New Latin gekko and English gecko stem from the Indonesian-Malay gēkoq, which is imitative of the sound the animals make.
All geckos, excluding the Eublepharidae family, lack eyelids and instead have a transparent membrane, which they lick to clean. Nocturnal species have excellent night vision; their eyes are 350 times more sensitive to light than the human eye.
Most gecko species can lose their tails in defense, a process called autotomy. Many species are well known for their specialized toe pads that enable them to climb smooth and vertical surfaces, and even cross indoor ceilings with ease (one hypothesis explains the ability in terms of the van der Waals force). These antics are well-known to people who live in warm regions of the world, where several species of geckos make their home inside human habitations. These species (for example the House Gecko) become part of the indoor menagerie and are often welcome guests, as they feed on insects, including mosquitoes. Unlike most lizards, geckos are usually nocturnal and are great climbers.
The largest species, the Kawekaweau, is only known from a single, stuffed specimen found in the basement of a museum in Marseille, France. This gecko was 60 cm (24 in) long and it was likely endemic to New Zealand, where it lived in native forests. It was probably wiped out along with much of the native fauna of these islands in the late 19th century, when new invasive species such as rats and stoats were introduced to the country during European colonization. The smallest gecko, the Jaragua Sphaero, is a mere 1.6 cm long and was discovered in 2001 on a small island off the coast of the Dominican Republic.
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