House Gecko

My home is frequented by lots of friendly inhouse guests. The below sequence of photographs are of some geckos who have decided one of my windows is the absolutely best place for them to set up their nursery.

They have been incredibly smart in selecting a safe spot for their nest and child rearing duties. Behind the closed window shutter of the below photograph is the gecko nest.

I keep the shutter closed so as to not disturb the gecko family - but quickly open it to photograph the gecko nest which is sandwiched with the shutter on one side and mosquito wire mesh on the other. Very smart!

This is the view from outside the window - and you can see the wire mosquito screen protecting the nest from predators - and there are plenty of them around. There is a nest of young rats in the garden, lots of Indian squirrels and the occasional python that comes to visit from the nearby Samudram Lake.

In the below photograph you can see how the clever gecko parents get in and out from their nest. They slip out through a small gap between the door and the metal security gate which is open when I am at home. I have noticed that one of the parents often is guarding the opening and protecting the nest from unwelcome visitors.

And proof of just how interested the local predators are in the gecko youngsters is this view of some serious wood chewing by either the rats or squirrels trying to bore their way into the nest.


Good job geckos!

Gecko Incidents

I suspect the sort of gecko (type of lizard) commonplace in India is also found in many countries throughout the world. I made an earlier posting about the nature of geckos and the amazing “Van Der Waals Forces” which is the atomic force that allows geckos to stick upside down to walls. For more on this read posting.

There are may geckos resident in my home and very nice they are too – with their scampering about, charming click-click noises, and also their talent of ridding my house of undesirable termite pests. Maybe its because they are left undisturbed to roam about at will that suddenly I am experiencing an explosion of ‘gecko incidents’ in my home.

A gecko on my wall

A couple of weeks ago a gecko fell into the water-filled kitchen sink. The poor little thing got the fright of his life. After rescuing the drenched and spluttering creature from the water I placed him on the counter and performed the life-saving technique of pushing his little chest in and out with my finger. Well it seemed to work and gradually he started to revive and after time I left him on the counter on a clean cloth to allow him to recover in his own time. When I next looked the gecko was gone, hopefully to resume a less accident prone life.

Last night I found a gecko stuck in a puddle of sunflower oil under the stove. It was really sad to see such a tiny little thing with wee arms and legs stuck to his oily sides. After carefully taking him out of the oil and patting him down gently with clean cotton cloths, there was really nothing else I could do but hope that somehow he would make a recovery.

This evening I noticed a large piece of fluff on the floor. On investigation I found my gecko from the night before with his little still slightly oily body covered with fluff and lint from floor and furniture. Although he seems to be in a better condition he is obviously in no fit shape to navigate the perilous world on his own. Presently our friend is swaddled in cotton in a large, lidded plastic sandwich box awaiting the morning and off to the animal hospital with him. We love our geckos!

Gecko Magic

Geckos are a type of lizard, that tend to be small, active at night, and have a short stout body with a large head. They can survive anywhere from house to jungles to deserts. They are common throughout India including Tiruvannamalai. To hear the clicking noises the Gecko occasionally makes is regarded as very good luck.

A gecko has four feet. Each foot has about half-a-million tiny hairs at its end. To give you an idea of how small the hairs are, a human hair is about 70 microns across compared to a hair on the end of a gecko's foot which is approximately 7 microns across, and 30-130 microns long. If you examine each one of these tiny hairs with an electron microscope, you'll see that each have several hundred smaller hairs coming of them; each one being about 0.2-0.5 microns across and called 'spatulae'.

Geckos stick to the surface they are on, thanks to atomic forces called "Van Der Waals Forces", named after a 19th century Dutch physicist who first described them. The hairs on a Gecko's foot are so minute that they stick to the surface (be it a ceiling or wall) by direct atomic or molecular force. In effect the Gecko becomes physically bonded to the object he is on. Apparently if a tiny Gecko had every one of its spatulae in contact with a surface, it would be capable of holding aloft a 120kg weight.

I believe something similar happens to us at Arunachala. And as it permeates our being, we literally bond to it on a sub atomic level in every aspect of our body-mind organism.