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Mediterranean House Gecko — printable fact sheet
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Mediterranean House Gecko
Hemidactylus turcicus
Hemidactylus turcicus is one of the most successful stowaways in the reptile world. Native to the Mediterranean basin and the Middle East, it has been carried by ship and cargo to the southern United States, Mexico, Cuba, Panama and beyond, and it now lives in essentially every …
Did you know?
- Unlike many reptiles, Mediterranean House Geckos thrive in human dwellings and are often more common in cities than in the wild.
- The gecko's adhesion is dry - no glue, no suction, just van der Waals forces across billions of contact points - and the same mechanism has been reverse-engineered into climbing pads capable of holding an adult human on glass. Their skin is covered in small raised tubercles that give the animal a distinctly bumpy, warty look, unlike the smooth house geckos it is often confused with. Populations in the United States are almost entirely urban and are rarely found more than a short distance from buildings and lights.
What I learned
Draw the mediterranean house gecko
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