The tale of two tails

My house is a safe haven for all manner of beasties including spiders, flies and the odd mozzie. They know it and so do their predators. Geckos, particularly Marbled Geckos (Christinus marmoratus), pictured left, are regular visitors to my windows at night where they feed on the insects attracted by the light.

Gecko have several amazing features. The spatula-shaped hairs on the pads of their feet create enough adhesive force that they can easily climb vertical panes of glass or walk upside down on the ceiling.

Geckos can also shed their tails when attacked. Many species of snakes, lizards and salamanders can shed their tails when grasped by a predator. This is called autotomy (from the Greek auto meaning self and tome meaning sever). But geckos such as the Marbled Gecko can do what is known as ‘caudal autotomy’ meaning that they can just drop their tail when stressed. When dropped the tails keeps moving to distract the predator from the escaping gecko.

And so whilst moving a low-slung sofa on the verandah I uncovered two gecko tails writhing on the concrete, pictured above. No sign of the geckos.

They were probably heading to the shops for some re-tail therapy!