Gecko

Gecko, any individual of the family Geckotidee, (wall-lizards), with 50 genera and 200 species widely distributed in the warmer parts of the globe. They are of small size (the largest being little over a foot in length, and the smallest about a quarter as much), with short, thick, fleshy tongue, stout limbs, and toes armed with claws and usually furnished below with adhesive discs or suckers, which enable these animals to run up walls and along ceilings, and to scramble with great rapidity over smooth rocks. The skin is loose and tubercled, and the colours are usually sombre, though some species are clad in blue, green, and red, the males being generally more brightly-hued than the females. They feed on insects and insect-larvte, generally digging the latter out of holes and crevices. Platydactylus fascicularis, the common wall-lizard, is abundant in Southern Europe. Iu some species, as in Ptychozoon homalocephalum, the Flying Gecko, from Java, the limbs are connected by a membrane which forms a kind of parachute enabling the animal to take long leaps. The name Gecko is derived from a clicking sound made by dragging the glottis up to the palate. All the geckos have the undeserved reputation of being more or less poisonous.