The Leaf-Tailed Gecko

A few class meetings ago, I had the opportunity to study leaf-tailed geckos in detail. Fascinating creatures! When I was first selecting an organism to study, I googled each of the recommendations Bob gave our class and this gecko caught my eye: its camouflage is stunning. In fact, one of the species under the genus uroplatus --the species phantasticus-- has a particularly evolved form of camouflage where its tail very closely (almost indistinguishably) resembles a fallen, dried leaf. There are notches that run along its tail that make it appear to be a stepped-on leaf to all but the keenest eyes. Incidentally, these notches are found more commonly among males and thus help identify a phantasticus's gender. Consider the following gecko:

Something else I learned when I was researching these geckos is that there are two forms of camouflage: crypsis and mimesis. A little of the differences between these two forms of camouflage are given away by the words' etymology. Crypsis is blending into your environment to avoid detection whereas mimesis is mimicking the appearance of another animal (an example is a butterfly that adopts the appearance of a poisonous butterfly so as to deter predators). These geckos employ crypsis.

Finally, here is a BBC video if you would like to learn more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/life/Uroplatus#p009yp4z. With any luck, we will see a few of these in Madagascar!

David M