My little friend Gecko or Tarantula of the Walls is a small lizard of phyllodactylidae family, widespread in most countries bordering the Mediterranean Sea. Adult specimens can measure up to 15 cm in length, including tail.
This gecko is robust and has a flat head. All over the body there are prominent tapered tubercles. The tail, if regenerated after being lost by autotomy, is instead smooth and free of tubercles.
It has a mouth similar to an obtuse angle, eyelid eyes and vertical pupil. It has fingers with large side edges and at the bottom of the face of adherent laminae divided by one another. Only the third finger remains united. The fingers are provided with large bearings, wider on the tip, having on the underside a series of longitudinal lamellas with adhesive function. It is these slats that allow the gecko to move with ease on virtually any surface, also smooth, vertical and even under the ceilings.
Coloring is gray or red brown with dark or bright spots. These colors change intensity depending on the light. Most geckos in temperate countries are gray or beige, spotted so fine to remember the gum. Many species can change color to camouflage or for other purposes, adapting for example to the surrounding environment.
Other species, characteristics of hot countries, may have bright colors, especially those with predominantly diurnal habits.
The geckos are the only reptiles of temperate countries with a voice, emitting a line that is not a hiss. When interacting with other gecks they emit characteristic lines, similar to shrieks or shrieks.
When they are active daylight, their color is darker thanwhen they are active at night.
It is located in yards, ruins, stone, tree trunks, dry walls, etc.
Of nightly or twilight habits, it can become active even during the day on sunny winter days.
Territorial, can be easily observed while hunting night bugs in the walls of urban buildings near the sources of light.
Catch it, well done my friend!!
An adult specimen can eat up to 200 mosquitoes in one night. The female lays two almost spherical eggs of about 1 centimeter in diameter twice a year around April and June. Births take place after four months.
The nocturnal species enjoy an excellent view of the dark. Their eyes are 350 times more susceptible to human light.
Species with eyelids are distinguished, welded to form a transparent capsule (Gekkoninae, Teratoscincinae, and Diplodactylinae), and species possessing mobile eyelids (Aleuroscalabotinae and Eublepharinae)
The gecko legs attracted a lot of attention to the ability to adhere to a variety of surfaces without the need for adhesive secretions. Recent studies on the setae at the bottom of the paws have shown that the attractive forces that hold the geckos attached to the surfaces are Van der Waals interactions between finely divided setae and the same surfaces. The fact that these interactions do not involve liquids or gas is fundamental: in theory a boot made of synthetic setae could adhere to the surface of the International Space Station as on any wall of a room.
Gees can withstand a traction force of 20.1 newton (about 2 kg), which allows them, for example, to cling to a leaf after a fall of 10 cm by touching it with one paw. On the geese's feet there are about 14,100 bristles per square millimeter. The bristles are divided into hundreds of branches, whose ends are only 0.2 micrometers wide, against the 10th of human hair. A small preload force is required to adhere to the surface. To dislodge the paw, the gecko does not have to struggle: just change the inclination of the bristles and the adhesion strength is missing. Thanks to these extraordinary structures, geckos can adhere to frosted glass, on smooth surface, hydrophilic and hydrophobic, as well as under vacuum or underwater.
The teflon chemical properties, characterized by very good Van der Waals interactions, make it the only known surface on which gecko legs are unable to adhere.
Studies are underway to artificially produce a programmable sticker such as gecko sticker, which would have obvious applications, but so far nothing has had the same performance.
They feed on insects (insectivores) and sometimes also fruits and nectars.
They often wander around artificial lights, always surrounded by insects, where they find abundant amounts of prey.
To hunt, they remain completely staring at the prey and shoot fast to the attack after a few seconds or even a few minutes of waiting.
Researchers are developing a special suit with shoes and gloves made of adhesive thanks to a special glue made of carbon nanotubes, able to adhere to any surface and to detach easily.
In practice, nanotubes, with very small hooks, would behave like a velcro, exactly like spiders and geckos, whose ability to move on each surface was studied by Italian scientists, with the aim of understand how to reconstruct this natural attitude in the lab.
At the head of the Turin team who is preparing the formula of the "Spider Man suit", also reported on the "Journal of Physics", is the engineer and physicist Nicola Pugno, who announced the completion by 2017.
By saying to the explanation that the scientist gave to the Times, the nanotubes would combine three forces, namely clutch, adherence due to Van der Waals forces and capillary adherence (a phenomenon visible when a liquid remains slightly raised from the edge of the container in which is located).
Some species are created by parthenogenesis, a phenomenon that the female can reproduce without the aid of the male. This peculiarity is the reason for the great ability to spread geckos on new islands.
It is common in almost all countries of the Mediterranean basin: Portugal, Spain, France, Italy, Serbia, Montenegro, Croatia, Greece, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt.
In Italy it is widespread along all coastal areas, including the Adriatic arch of the Gulf of Venice, leading mainly to the Tyrrhenian side. It is also reported in the coastal areas of the big lakes of the north and in the subalpine range.
If it is not disturbed (it is totally harmless) it can live in homes, but still remains a wild animal.
So, let help littles geckos to grow and to hunt a millions of mosquitos and other insects..
Thanks to read my wild life post.
Sincerly,
