Friday, August 21, 2009

Geckos galore!

I admit to knowing very little about geckos before arriving in the Solomons. Since then, and it has only been one month, my learning curve has been a steep one! And it's not just me - all of us are really getting 'hands on' lessons about geckos, literally!

When we first arrived, the girls were a little apprehensive about seeing geckos on the walls inside our house each night. But soon they were used to them, and even named a few recognisable ones - Tiny: the cute, almost clear baby gecko; Cream: the large, light coloured gecko; and Ginger: the VERY large, dark coloured gecko.

Cream and Ginger seem to have the run of the house, and can be heard having territorial hissing fights, among other things. Geoff has now declared war on the large geckos, after countless sleep disturbances, and can now be seen stalking them with a broom or mop each night! Last night he killed a largish one, but it wasn't Ginger - the one we really want to get. Ginger is way too clever - he seems to know we are after him, so does just enough to make sure we can't get him. As Geoff says, "The war is on!"

Over the last few weeks, the kids have been finding gecko eggs under the house. Yesterday, their curiosity got the better of them, and they cracked one of the eggs open. They came racing inside to show me the baby gecko - not fully formed yet. Pretty interesting stuff, although I wasn't thrilled when Elora came in later on, with the gecko embryo (or whatever it's called) in her hand. "Look Mummy, it's stuck to my hand!", she said as she was waving it around everywhere. Yuk! And just before dinner too!

This morning the kids were thrilled to discover one of the eggs had hatched. They cracked a second one, and out crawled a very cute little baby gecko. Everyone wanted to have a hold, so I'm not sure how well they'll survive, but this is learning at its best!

Sophie does her best to catch them, but they are so fast, so it's hard work. A few weeks ago we caught one on the floor in the house, which Sophie immediately wanted to hold. I grabbed my camera and snapped away as the gecko ran up her arm, right up to her shoulder. Unfortunately I accidently deleted the photos - very annoying!

I like watching the silhouetted geckos crawling on the flyscreens at night, attracted there by the large amount of moths and bugs congregating near the lights. As long as they are not too big, they're very cute and they do a good job of keeping the bugs under control.


The eggs are the size of a large pea.

The 'embryo'

Everyone wanted a look in!

Newly hatched baby geckos

Sophie caught this little one.

I like the light coloured ones the best.

Ginger is similar to this one, only much bigger! Geoff insists his days are numbered!

1 comment:

  1. We had lots of geckos in Africa as well They would pause to do "push-ups" every so often. Do yours do that as well? They often lost their tails in accidents or whatever and we would find little tails still twitching on the floor. R

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