As lizards go, it’s hard to beat an anole. But geckos come pretty close. Anole Annals, of course, is dedicated to reporting all things anole, but until Gecko Gossip debuts, we feel it’s only polite to occasionally comment on geckonid happenings.
In that light, we were impressed to see the culinary prowess of the Tokay gecko, which apparently quite regularly preys on small rats in the Philippines. Read all about it in Herpetology Notes.
Professor of Biology and Director of the Living Earth Collaborative at Washington University in Saint Louis. I've spent my entire professional career studying anoles and have discovered that the more I learn about anoles, the more I realize I don't know.
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Kurt Schwenk
Thanks for pointing this out Jonathan. Tokay’s are both vicious and voracious! Here’s another interesting tokay gecko fact: Tokays, of course, have a characteristic call that varies regionally in dialects, from which they derive their name. I used to work with a Viet Nam vet who said that they would lie in their foxholes at night listening to them calling. But instead hearing “tokay! tokay!”, to the soldiers, the lizards were shouting “f*** you!, f*** you!, f*** you!”. Context is everything.
Reynold Boyce
Interesting that this Gecko predation shot came at the time it did. For just three days ago I heard a wild squeeking noise emanating from a hole in the ground near my back step – (Sangre Grande region of Trinidad ). A minute later our major ground lizard, (Ameiva ameiva), emerged with a mouse (could have been a small rat) in its mouth in a manner similar to your Tokay Gecko’s feeding behaviour.
A case of ecological convergence?
Reynold C. Boyce