The Eyelash Gecko

Blog vol 4.24. The Eyelash Gecko

One of my son’s friends got a gecko for his birthday. It is really cool; it is a reptile after all. The thing that I am amazed at is its eyes (surprise!). It is called the Crested Gecko, Correlophus ciliatus, with the cilia part of the name coming from the Latin word for eyelashes.

So I got on the web and did some research. This gecko is a native of New Caledonia, a group of islands in the southwest Pacific. They live in the canopy of the rain forests and can live to be 5 to 10 years old in the wild and about 5 years longer in a terrarium. Crested Geckos can grow to be 10 to 15 cm in length with half of that being their tails. They have a prehensile tail that can grab onto branches or fingers, but one must be careful with the tail as it can break off and, unfortunately, it does not grow back.

Among the most distinctive features of these geckos are the hair-like spikes above the eyes which greatly resemble eyelashes. They also have two rows of spines that run from the sides of their wedge-shaped head to the base of their tail. Their padded feet have tiny setae, hundreds of them, which increase surface area and allow them to even climb vertical panes of glass.