Geckos

When I was a boy in East Africa geckos were a part of my daily life. These small lizards, typically around 10cm in length, appeared at night and, because of the amazing suction system on their feet and their superb night vision, spent the dark hours hunting insects on the walls and ceilings of our bedrooms.

In the hot season my brother and my beds were moved out onto an open, upstairs veranda for coolness, and there the geckos were in gecko clover because the lights above our beds attracted a storm of moths and other insects. Then the geckos would not only hunt insects on the walls but also on our mosquito nets, so I might be lying in bed reading to be disturbed by a small 'thump' as one of them performed an acrobatic two-foot jump from wall to the netting to chase a particularly succulent quarry.

The geckos I remember on the East African coast were the common house gecko which was originally native to SE Asia. It's a boring pale brown, its only really interesting feature being that, if it approached a wall light to grab an insect, I could see its innards. Some of the geckos of Mauritius, by comparison, are day geckos and stunningly coloured. The island, small as it is, has five resident species of which the one at the top of this page is, I think, the ornate day gecko Phelsuma ornata.