I found a Yellow-bellied House Gecko Hemidactylus flaviviridis in the garden
of our house last night. Unfortunately it was not a good photographic subject
and kept trying to hide behind objects, as Geckos do. They occur through parts
of the Arabian Peninsula including Saudi Arabia as well as Afghanistan, Egypt,
Ethiopia, India, Iran, Iraq, Nepal, Pakistan and Somalia and can vary their
body colour depending on the time of day, being greyish, olive or brown,
patterned with indistinct bands on the back and yellowish on the underside.
During the day, the gecko is usually much darker in colour, with contrasting,
chevron-shaped bands on the body with the toes having broad pads and small
claws. They are associated with man-made structures such as houses, but during
the day, they retreat to undisturbed crevices and other such hiding places
coming out at night to feed primarily on insects. They can climb vertical walls
and walk on ceilings which is achieved by having specialised toe pads, which
are covered in small scales called ‘scansors’ which can have up to 150,000
microscopic, highly branched, hair-like structures, known as setae, which form
hundreds of saucer-shaped ‘end plates’. This gives the Gecko an enormous
surface area in relation to its body size, enabling it to grip all kinds of
surfaces. This species of Gecko has particularly large and sensitive eyes, with
pupils which open-wide at night to let in maximum amounts of light, giving it
excellent vision in the dark. The pupils contract to vertical slits during the
day to protect the retina from harsh sunlight, while the eyelids are fused to
form a transparent cover for additional protection. Any dust or debris in the eye
is licked away by the gecko’s extremely mobile tongue. I thank Mansur Al Fahad for identifying the Gecko from my poor photo.
