Not all of our household/ neighborhood animals are as troublesome as the chickens. Some are downright wonderful. These are the geckos, little lizards that scurry up walls and across ceilings. The geckos are as useful and unobtrusive as the roosters are frustrating and obnoxious.
You see the geckos are the number one predator of night flying insects. They are nature’s mosquito assassins. They actually will eat a variety of nocturnal bugs including: beetles, flies, mosquitoes and moths. Just the other day I happened to look out the kitchen window as I was filling my cup at the sink for some tea. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a gecko slowly creeping across the outside of the window. He was silently stalking a moth a few inches away. Then, suddenly, he rushed forward and snapped up the moth. A few bites later and the gecko could be seen cleaning off its eyes from debris of the attack. Geckos actually have rather long tongues just for the purpose. It looks rather like a cartoon animal licking their lips only they extend the tongue out past their lips and carefully wipe their eyes clean.
We have 5 types of geckos in American Samoa. All of which are small, 2-7 inch lizards which have an amazing ability to climb up vertical and horizontal surfaces. There is almost nothing that these helpful little reptiles can’t climb. While their ability to climb up seemingly smooth glass is rather remarkable, it is their agility on ceilings which I am impressed by. As they run across a ceiling in pursuit of prey they will sometimes lunge towards their would-be meal. In this act they seem to defy gravity as they move forward along the ceiling rather than falling to the floor.
The secret to their amazing climbing is not little suction-cups as is often believed. Instead it is actually thousands of microscopic hair-like hooks along the bottoms of their toes. So their toes are more akin to Velcro than suction-cups. These hooks are so tiny that they actually grab onto tiny imperfections in the surface they are climbing, making things as seemingly smooth as glass easily grabbed.
What is really great, at least at our house, is that they find their way into the house, eat the bugs, and then find their own way back out! So for us it is always a welcome sight when a gecko is seen streaking past. The mini army that hangs out on our porch outside the front door is always welcome too.
So geckos are the wonder animal right? Well, they do bark. Bark? Yes bark. Their mating calls are a quiet chirp-like noise. Some sound rather like a telephone ring, while others sound like a tiny dog yelping. They are so quiet and infrequent that they are not the obtrusive nuisance that some “other” animals are. All in all, they are wonderful little mosquito eating machines, and we are happy about having them around.
You see the geckos are the number one predator of night flying insects. They are nature’s mosquito assassins. They actually will eat a variety of nocturnal bugs including: beetles, flies, mosquitoes and moths. Just the other day I happened to look out the kitchen window as I was filling my cup at the sink for some tea. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a gecko slowly creeping across the outside of the window. He was silently stalking a moth a few inches away. Then, suddenly, he rushed forward and snapped up the moth. A few bites later and the gecko could be seen cleaning off its eyes from debris of the attack. Geckos actually have rather long tongues just for the purpose. It looks rather like a cartoon animal licking their lips only they extend the tongue out past their lips and carefully wipe their eyes clean.
We have 5 types of geckos in American Samoa. All of which are small, 2-7 inch lizards which have an amazing ability to climb up vertical and horizontal surfaces. There is almost nothing that these helpful little reptiles can’t climb. While their ability to climb up seemingly smooth glass is rather remarkable, it is their agility on ceilings which I am impressed by. As they run across a ceiling in pursuit of prey they will sometimes lunge towards their would-be meal. In this act they seem to defy gravity as they move forward along the ceiling rather than falling to the floor.
The secret to their amazing climbing is not little suction-cups as is often believed. Instead it is actually thousands of microscopic hair-like hooks along the bottoms of their toes. So their toes are more akin to Velcro than suction-cups. These hooks are so tiny that they actually grab onto tiny imperfections in the surface they are climbing, making things as seemingly smooth as glass easily grabbed.
What is really great, at least at our house, is that they find their way into the house, eat the bugs, and then find their own way back out! So for us it is always a welcome sight when a gecko is seen streaking past. The mini army that hangs out on our porch outside the front door is always welcome too.
So geckos are the wonder animal right? Well, they do bark. Bark? Yes bark. Their mating calls are a quiet chirp-like noise. Some sound rather like a telephone ring, while others sound like a tiny dog yelping. They are so quiet and infrequent that they are not the obtrusive nuisance that some “other” animals are. All in all, they are wonderful little mosquito eating machines, and we are happy about having them around.
-Paul
No comments:
Post a Comment