29 January 2016 - Geckos

Today, I had a different kind of adventure. The Utah Natural History Museum has a new exhibit on geckos. It is the first time they have had an exhibit featuring live animals. I went and learned a lot about geckos. 

The most interesting thing, or scary, depending on your point of view is that biologists are breeding new varieties of geckos for color and size. They are calling them Art Geckos. It takes 30 generations to get a new gecko, and in gecko generations, that isn't all that long. Apparently the Leopard Gecko is sought after in the pet trade and through inbreeding and selected breeding they have made a number of new color morphs of leopard geckos. There is now an albino morph first created in 2005, 

a tangerine morph created in 1996,

a striped morph created in 1991,

and finally a supergiant morph created in 2000.  It is about twice the size of a normal leopard gecko. 

Another surprise was how tiny some of the geckos are. A few were smaller than the little anoles (we called them chameleons) that you could buy for 50 cents at the local five and dime store. 

I liked the really colorful ones like this Peacock Day Gecko. It is about 5 inches long. 

Also found out that most geckos are nocturnal so those that come out in the day are called Day Geckos. 

Gold Dust Day Gecko               Lined Day Gecko

I'm pretty sure this is the Neon Day Gecko, but don't quote me. 

Giant Day Gecko

In addition to the colorful geckos, there were some that were masters of camouflage. This Western Banded Gecko can blend right in with the little rocks. His legs almost look transparent and too spindly to hold him up, but he could really move out in a hurry. 

This is a Gliding Gecko. Not only does he blend in with bark and rocks, he is something like a flying squirrel in that he doesn't fly, but has webbed feet and there is extra skin on his sides and legs that he can spread to act like a cape when he glides.  

It was a wonderful exhibit with lots of info including all the different kinds of feet and eyes. Scientists are trying to develop new adhesives based on gecko feet. 

Here are a few of the many shapes of feet. 

Like snakes, geckos don't have eyelids. They use their tongue to wipe their eyes.

If this exhibit comes to a museum near you, go! They are beautiful and amazing creatures. 

Because it was the opening day, they had gecko cookies to help celebrate. Yum!