House Gecko
| Common House Gecko | ||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Hemidactylus frenatus (Juvenile)
|
||||||||||||||||
| Scientific classification | ||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||
| Binomial name | ||||||||||||||||
| Hemidactylus frenatus (Schlegel,1836) |
The House Gecko, scientific name Hemidactylus frenatus, is a native of southeastern Asia and the northern parts of Africa. Known as the Pacific house gecko or Asian house gecko, it is the most recently discovered member of a quartet of small, prolific and aggressive little lizards that become active at twilight. They can be seen climbing walls of houses and other buildings in search of insects attracted to porch lights, hence their name. Spread around the world by ships, these geckos are now common in the southern half of the United States as well as large parts of Australia. They grow to a length of between three to six inches, and live for about five years.
A tropical gecko, Hemidactylus frenatus thrives in warm, humid areas where it can crawl around on rotting wood in search of the insects it eats. The animal is very adaptable and may prey on insects and spiders, displacing other reptiles. Scientists of Columbia University have found that these geckos can also survive on feline feces.
Description
Snout longer than the distance between the eye and the ear-opening, 1.3 to 1.5 the diameter of the orbit; forehead concave; ear-opening small, roundish. Body and limbs moderate. Digits moderately dilated, free, inner with sessile claw; 4 or 5 lamelle under the inner digits, 7 or 8 (seldom 9) under the fourth finger, and 9 or 10 under the fourth toe. Upper surfaces covered with small granules, largest on the snout; on the back these granules are intermixed with more or less numerous irregularly scattered round convex tubercles always much smaller than the ear-opening, sometimes almost entirely absent. Rostral four-sided, nearly twice as broad as deep, with median cleft above; nostril pierced between the rostral, the first labial, and three nasals; 10 to 12 upper and 8 to 10 lower labials; mental large, triangular or pentagonal ; two or three pairs of chin-shields, the median in contact behind the point of the mental. Abdominal scales moderate, cycloid, imbricate. Male with a series of 30 or 36 femoral pores, not interrupted on the preanal region. Tail rounded, feebly depressed, covered above with very small smooth scales and six longitudinal series of keeled tubercles, below with a median series of transversely dilated plates. Greyish or pinkish brown above, uniform or more or less distinctly marbled with darker; head generally variegated with brown; a more or less defined brown streak, light-edged above, on the side of the head, passing through the eye, extending sometimes along the side of the body ; lower surfaces whitish.[1]
Distribution
- Worldwide in tropical and subtropical regions.
- Philippines (Palawan, Panay, Calamian Islands, Luzon etc.), Japan (Ryūkyū, Bonin).
- Polynesia, Micronesia (Caroline Islands: Pohnpei), Melanesia, Solomon Islands [McCoy 2000]
- Somalia (Lanza 1990).
- Madagascar, Mauritius, Reunion, Rodrigues, Comoro Islands (Mayotte), Nossi Be = Nosy Bé (probably Nosy Mitsio, Seychelles, India, Pakistan, Andaman Islands, Nicobar Islands, Bangladesh, Bhutan.
- Nepal, Sri Lanka, Maldives, Malaysia, Burma (Myanmar) Vietnam, Thailand.
- Indonesia (Sumatra, Borneo, Java, Bali, Lombok, Sulawesi, Ambon.
- Australia (Cook Island, CKI, coastal Northern Territory, coastal Queensland, coastal Northern New South Wales, Western Australia).
- Western Samoa, New Caledonia.
- New Guinea, Fiji (introduced).
- Taiwan, China (Hong Kong, Guangdong, Hainan, S Yunnan).
- El Salvador (HR 33: 65), Mexico (Yucatan), Belize, Guatemala, Panama, Honduras [HR 31: 53; Isla de Utila: HR 32: 57], Costa Rica, Nicaragua.
- Introduced to Mariana Islands (Guam) and New Caledonia.
- Introduced to USA (Hawaii, Florida, Texas).
- Found in Desert Hot Springs, California, as well as parts of Texas, such as Austin, San Antonio, and the Dallas/Fort Worth area.
- Type locality: Java
- Found in residential areas in El Paso, Texas
- Found in residential areas of Dallas/Fort Worth, Texas
- Found in residential areas in Phoenix, Arizona
- Found in residential area in Houston, Texas
- Found in residential area in Jacksonville, Florida
- Iran in residental area called as Marmoolak مارمولک
- Found in residential area called Ipoh, Perak, Malaysia
House Geckos in Captivity
House Geckos can be kept as pets in a vivarium with a clean substrate, and typically require a heat source in order to self-regulate their body temperature, and a system of humidifiers and plants in order to provide them with moisture.
Notes
- ^ Boulenger, G. A. (1890) Fauna of British India. Reptilia and Batrachia.
References
- Cook, Robert A. 1990 Range extension of the Darwin house gecko, Hemidactylus frenatus. Herpetofauna (Sydney) 20 (1): 23-27
- Darevsky I S; Kupriyanova L A; Roshchin V V 1984 A new all-female triploid species of gecko and karyological data on the bisexual Hemidactylus frenatus from Vietnam. Journal of Herpetology 18 (3) : 277-284
- Edgren, Richard A. 1950 Notes on the Neotropical population of Hemidactylus frenatus Schlegel Natural History Miscellanea (55): 1-3
- Edgren, R. A. 1956 Notes on the neotropical population of Hemidactylus frenatus Schlegel. Nat. Hist. Misc. 55: 1-3.
- Jerdon,T.C. 1853 Catalogue of the Reptiles inhabiting the Peninsula of India. Part 1. J. Asiat. Soc. Bengal xxii [1853]: 462-479
- McCoy, C. J.;Busack, Stephen D. 1970 The lizards Hemidactylus frenatus and Leiolopisma metallica on the Island of Hawaii Herpetologica 26 (3): 303
- Norman, Bradford R. 2003 A new geographical record for the introduced house gecko, Hemidactylus frenatus, at Cabo San Lucas, Baja California Sur, Mexico, with notes on other species observed. Bulletin of the Chicago Herpetological Society. 38(5):98-100 [erratum in 38(7):145]
- Ota H 1989 Hemidactylus okinawensis Okada 1936, junior synonym of H. frenatus in Duméril & Bibron 1836. J. Herpetol. 23 (4): 444-445
- Saenz, Daniel;Klawinski, Paul D. 1996 Geographic Distribution. Hemidactylus frenatus. Herpetological Review 27 (1): 32
External links
- House Gecko Info and Care
- The Reptile House - House Geckos
- Interaction of Asian House geckos and Wasps
.
This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)
