Leave it to the Germans to make a supposedly common name even less pronounceable than the already tricky Latin: "Gebänderter Bogenfingergecko" (Cyrtodactylus consobrinus). I'm sure the poor bugger has no idea how many generations of biology students have literally cursed his name.
This foot-long individual was a master class in stealth behavior: for a good half hour, it just sat there fully inert, like a marble gargoyle, observing me keenly as I Charlie Chaplined around with my malfunctioning gear (flash battery dead, soft box wouldn't open, everything covered in sweat, curses ringing through the night), moving not a muscle even when I almost touched him with the lens. Thank you, Mr. Zen. You sure made my night.
PS: In the past weeks, I've been rediscovering the life form that originally brought me to Borneo - carnivorous tropical pitcher plants, genus Nepenthes. For those who like their veggies armed and violent, here's a selection of some truly spectacular specimens we've found around Kuching this year:
http://pitcherplants.proboards.com/thre ... -desert-oh
http://pitcherplants.proboards.com/thre ... us-nepnerd
http://pitcherplants.proboards.com/thre ... rs-sarawak
http://pitcherplants.proboards.com/thre ... st-sarawak
http://pitcherplants.proboards.com/thre ... rs-sarawak
Borneo Dispatches #83: Peter's Forest Gecko
Moderator: Scott Waters
- Hans Breuer (twoton)
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Re: Borneo Dispatches #83: Peter's Forest Gecko
Very cool, not at all like my experiences with this species though the times I encountered them they would dart away and run up the trunk they were sitting on or dart into a crack nearly as soon as my headlamp illuminated them.
Amazing pitcher plants as well, botany isn't my thing so much but Nepenthes are insanely cool!
Amazing pitcher plants as well, botany isn't my thing so much but Nepenthes are insanely cool!
- Hans Breuer (twoton)
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Re: Borneo Dispatches #83: Peter's Forest Gecko
Thanks! Yes, I was lucky, I guess ...
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Re: Borneo Dispatches #83: Peter's Forest Gecko
Very nice, I wonder whether this might be C. malayanus?
- Hans Breuer (twoton)
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Re: Borneo Dispatches #83: Peter's Forest Gecko
Good question. How to tell them apart? I'm not a gecko specialist, really ... only recently realized that there's more to them than just snake fooddendrelaphis wrote:Very nice, I wonder whether this might be C. malayanus?
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Re: Borneo Dispatches #83: Peter's Forest Gecko
I don't remember other than that the morphological differences are small..... But the colouration made me wonder.
- Hans Breuer (twoton)
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Re: Borneo Dispatches #83: Peter's Forest Gecko
We checked a bunch of field guides, and this is consobrinus indeed. But I'd never even heard of malayanus before - thanks for bringing that to my attention!