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Surprising Facts About Geckos
Other than their adhesive feet and lasting fame from a series of car insurance commercials, you probably don't know a whole lot about geckos. And yet this category of more than 1,100 species of lizard is filled with fascinating surprises. Delve into the world of the geckos and learn how they stick to ceilings, fly through trees, change color, and even call to each other with "barks."
1. Geckos' Amazing Toes Help Them Stick to Any Surface Except Teflon
One of their most famous talents is their ability to scurry along slick surfaces — even glass windows or across ceilings. The only surface that geckos can't stick to is Teflon. Well, dry Teflon. Add water, however, and geckos can stick even to this seemingly impossible surface! They do this through specialized toe pads.1
Contrary to popular belief, geckos don’t have “sticky” toes, as if covered with glue. They cling with incredible ease thanks to nanoscale hairs, known as setae, that line every toe in huge numbers. Taken together, the 6.5 million setae on a single gecko can reportedly generate enough force to support the weight of two humans.
This fantastic adaptation of geckos has inspired scientists to look for ways to mimic this cling-ability, improving everything from medical bandages to self-cleaning tires.
2. Geckos' Eyes Are 350 Times More Sensitive to Light Than Human Eyes
According to a 2009 study of the helmet gecko, “Tarentola chazaliae, discriminates colors in dim moonlight when humans are color blind.2 The sensitivity of the helmet gecko eye has been calculated to be 350 times higher than human cone vision at the color vision threshold. The optics and the large cones of the gecko are important reasons why they can use color vision at low light intensities.”
While we would hardly be able to make out color at all in dim moonlight, geckos can go about their business in what is, to them, still a colorful world.
3. Geckos Are Able to Produce Various Sounds for Communication, Including Barks, Chirps, and Clicks
Unlike most lizards, geckos are able to vocalize. They make clicks, chirps,barks, and other sounds to communicate with fellow geckos.
The purpose of the sounds could be to warn away competitors from a territory, to avoid direct fighting, or to attract mates, depending on the species and situation. But if you ever hear an odd chirping in your house at night, you might just have a gecko as a guest.
4. Some Species of Geckos Have No Legs and Look More Like Snakes
There are upward of 35 lizard species in the Pygopodidae family. This family falls under the clade of Gekkota, which includes six families of geckos. These species — all of which are endemic to Australia and New Guinea — lack forelimbs and have only vestigial hind limbs that look more like flaps. The species are usually called legless lizards, snake lizards or, thanks to those flap-like back feet, flap-footed lizards.
Like other species of gecko, pygopods can vocalize, emitting high-pitched squeaks for communication. They also have stand-out hearing, and are capable of hearing tones higher than those detectable by any other reptile species.
5. Most Geckos Can Detach Their Tails and Regrow Them
Like many species of lizard, geckos are able to drop their tails as a response to predation. When a gecko is grabbed, the tail drops off and continues to twitch and thrash about, providing a great distraction that might allow the gecko to escape from a hungry predator. Geckos also drop their tails as a response to stress, infection, or if the tail itself is grabbed.
Amazingly, geckos drop their tails along a pre-scored or “dotted line,” so to speak. It's a design that allows a gecko to lose its tail quickly and with minimal damage to the rest of its body.
A gecko can regrow its dropped tail, though the new tail will likely be shorter, more blunt, and colored a bit differently than the original tail. The crested gecko is one species that cannot regrow its tail; once it's gone, it's gone.
And as always have a chilled day from the Viking
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