Oh so tiny gecko surprise

Check it out! I opened the toy from my cereal box this morning and this is what was inside!

No, not really...that would be something though. I actually pulled a dishtowel off the counter in the kitchen this morning, and this little guy flew out. Look at him! He's so cute! I had to throw the quarter in there for size comparison--elsewise no one would believe it!

I tried in vain to determine the species--there are actually a couple of house-dwelling brownish geckos with mottled back patterns. Especially at this age (a day, maybe?) they are difficult to distinguish. My money's on the House Gecko, given that it's the most common species on Hawaii and--who would've thought--it likes to hang out in houses. It's especially a fan of porch lights during the twilight hours. We're talkin' bug city.

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Fellow blipper Naturelover wondered the other day how these guys can stick to walls, and that got me wondering. I found a terrific explanation for it on the Hawaiian Encyclopedia website; I thought this time I'd post the article rather than paraphrase it, as it does an excellent job:


"[H]ow is it that geckos are able to walk upside down on the ceiling?

Researchers had ruled out suction (geckos can walk upside down in a vacuum), they ruled out friction (they can walk upside-down on smooth surfaces), and they ruled out electrostatic attraction (antistatic guns do not deter the gecko's upside-down abilities).

So how do geckos walk upside down? It turns out that each gecko toe contains more than 100,000 tiny hairs, called setae, and each setae is one-tenth as thick as a human hair and only about twice as long as a human hair's diameter. The end of the setae is split into hundreds of parts, each with a spatula-shaped tip, which can only be seen with an electron microscope.

The gecko's sheer number of surface contact points-literally millions-collectively generates the same type of force that holds molecules together. It is this intermolecular force, known as VanderWaals force, that creates the adhesive bond that allows geckos to walk upside down on the ceiling.

The tips of the hairs are so fine that they go into even the slightest depressions on sheets of glass or other surfaces. Geckos roll their toes as they step, changing the angle of the hairs just enough to release the surface tension.

Scientists learning how to use this adhesive intermolecular force are now considering a variety of new ideas, from reusable tape to climbing gloves and Department of Defense geckobots."