The Top 10 Most Beautiful Gecko species in your opinion

EsserWarrior said:
All Uroplatus species are beautiful, in my opinion. I also think that leopard geckos and gargoyle geckos - despite being very common - are stunning.
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Yes, I do think Leopard geckos how common they may be are very stunning creatures, not to mention adorable. Gargoyle geckos I would imagine are beautiful in their own sense, like an art project or something. They really do look like statues.
 
CheeseChameleon2007 said:
Yes, I do think Leopard geckos how common they may be are very stunning creatures, not to mention adorable. Gargoyle geckos I would imagine are beautiful in their own sense, like an art project or something. They really do look like statues.
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I think the name gargoyle for those particular geckos is one of the most suitable given to any animal.

They do look like they could have been carved from granite and placed on Nortre Dame or Reims cathedral by some medieval stone mason to scare off evil spirits.
 
Onychorhynchus coronatus said:
I think the name gargoyle for those particularly geckos is one of the most suitable given to any animal.

They do look like they could have been carved from granite and placed on Nortre Dame or Reims cathedral.
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If there would be a gecko house at a zoo, decorations inspired by The Gargoyle gecko could be decorated uniquely throughout an ornate building. I think it would be a neat design choice for sure.
 
CheeseChameleon2007 said:
If there would be a gecko house at a zoo, decorations inspired by The Gargoyle gecko could be decorated uniquely throughout an ornate building. I think it would be a neat design choice for sure.
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Yes, but actually carved from stone and done tastefully and aesthetically otherwise it would just look a bit tacky.

There are some brilliant examples of stone carvings of unusual native animals from the Cathedral here in São Paulo City.

https://www.researchgate.net/figure...ans-B-armadillos-C-lizards-and_fig8_268631584
 
Onychorhynchus coronatus said:
In this particular case I think it is just very mediocre people looking for a reason to be existentially fulfilled in this pale, inert and nihilistic age by looking to the new quasi-religion of "wokeness" and to summon up feelings of outrage in order to signal their moral and ethical superiority.

Durrell was not perfect (far from it judging by what I read in his biography as he had some serious issues with depression, emotional volatility and also some substance abuse issues) and we shouldn't view him as a god or saint-like figure as that is just as myopic as the other side and all their bulls***

However, he was an incredible man and very much ahead of his time and honestly we are still discovering just how genius his vision of conservation was even now which is remarkable.

Contrary to some of the cringeworthy bulls*** that I read in the thread (that I've mentioned) Durrell was not a racist or a colonialist, why would he have developed the DESMAN course and spoke with such evident affection about different cultures and indigenous peoples in his books if he was one ?

I think if the ardent woke "social revolutionaries" want to see a racist or colonialist in Durrell then they have optic problems bordering on blindness and must live their lives rather like woke olms that instead of searching for prey search for something banal to get ouraged about in their meaningless social media ecosystem.

They would be better placed to actually do some research on this man's life and then move on to direct their efforts elsewhere and towards the legacy of someone who was actually one of those things and deserves it (and if we're honest there were plenty of characters like that in 20th century conservation).

Honestly, I can't remember exactly which was the book that featured the round island day gecko but I think it may have been "Pink pigeons and golden bats" about Durrell's trip to Mauritius which was a pretty good book too.
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Just to clarify I have absolutely nothing against Durrell at all, whilst not perfect as you say he's one of my favourite authors and one of the real heroes so to speak of conservation. I was in part covering my own back in case someone hit back at me with an opinion like the one you mentioned, though I was also thinking that some today would be uncomfortable reading about collecting wild animals en masse for zoo displays and keeping chimpanzees as pets etc.
Dont think I've heard of the book you mentioned and certainly haven't read it but will definitely be having a look for it now
 
EsserWarrior said:
All Uroplatus species are beautiful, in my opinion. I also think that leopard geckos and gargoyle geckos - despite being very common - are stunning.
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In addition to these I'd like to mention the New Caledonia crested gecko which is also very beautiful and common in the pet trade (all captive bred) but rare in the wild
CheeseChameleon2007 said:
If there would be a gecko house at a zoo, decorations inspired by The Gargoyle gecko could be decorated uniquely throughout an ornate building. I think it would be a neat design choice for sure.
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I love the concept of a gecko house, I hope there is one out there! I also quite like it when zoos include statues of animals if they are done tastefully
Onychorhynchus coronatus said:
Yes, but actually carved from stone and done tastefully and aesthetically otherwise it would just look a bit tacky.

There are some brilliant examples of stone carvings of unusual native animals from the Cathedral here in São Paulo City.

https://www.researchgate.net/figure...ans-B-armadillos-C-lizards-and_fig8_268631584
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Those are beautiful, interestingly there are similar carvings on the outside of the cathedral in Quito, Ecuador
 
Greenshank said:
Just to clarify I have absolutely nothing against Durrell at all, whilst not perfect as you say he's one of my favourite authors and one of the real heroes so to speak of conservation. I was in part covering my own back in case someone hit back at me with an opinion like the one you mentioned, though I was also thinking that some today would be uncomfortable reading about collecting wild animals en masse for zoo displays and keeping chimpanzees as pets etc.
Dont think I've heard of the book you mentioned and certainly haven't read it but will definitely be having a look for it now
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Oh no , don't worry about it , I definitely didn't interpret your comment that way at all. The thing is in these strange times we are all covering our backs now so it is understandable. Of course, I agree, there were things that Durrell did that would be frowned upon by the moral standards of today.

For example, the chimpanzee (I think it was called Chumly wasn't it ?) being dressed up in human clothes and being kept as a pet wouldn't be seen as a positive thing by any means in todays world. However, back then it was the norm and there were chimpanzee tea parties at zoos, the first television adverts were broadcasting commercials for tea and cigarettes using chimps dressed this way, there were chimps performing in circuses and best experimented on in laboratories, people could buy pet chimps from London, New York and Parisian petshops etc .

I remember reading in his biography that when this chimp escaped from the London zoo where it had been sent and was shot dead by a police marksman this deeply impacted Durrell and made him reflect morally on the role he had played in wrongly humanizing this animal. If I remember correctly from my reading this incident deeply depressed Gerald and his subsequent contributions to great ape conservation with the Western Lowland gorilla and the Sumatran orangutang reflect someone determined and deeply committed to conserving these species.

The same could be said with his early days as a young man collecting animals for zoos from West and Central Africa and Northern and Southern South America. He saw first hand that zoos had to be reformed from the Victorian stamp book collection mentality and early on saw the anthropogenic stressors that were driving population declines of species in the wild.

As a result of this, he drew back from being complicit in these practices and said "No, I'm not doing this anymore, this is morally wrong and you can count me out". He then developed a strong conservation ethos that was uniquely his own vision and he applied it and promoted it and fought for his ideals despite being rejected and being seen as a renegade, a joke and an upstart / firebrand by the old boys network and the zoo establishment.

What I'm trying to say is that Durrell, though not perfect (no human is) and having some significant flaws was ultimately a revolutionary figure for conservation and some of the woke crew who would paint him as some kind of mediocre old colonial racist really do not know what they are going on about.
 
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These are some of my favourite geckos, beside ones already mentioned here:

The golden gecko Gekko badenii only has gold present on its back, sometimes in thick bands, and on its tail, with the limbs and head a pale grey; it is unfortunate that its subtle beauty has partly resulted in it ending up on the endangered list:
https://www.aquasnack.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Gekko-badenii-Golden-Gecko.jpg

The cat gecko Aeluroscalabotes felinus does have something about that makes it look quite unlike any other gecko - it might perhaps the proportion of the legs, body and head that makes it so unique-looking:
Cat gecko male | Outback Reptiles

The shieldhead gecko Gonatodes caudiscutatus of South America has beautiful white and blue spots on a dark body, with a black-and-yellow striped head:
http://www.dwarfgeckos.com/gonatodes/g_cau/images/gonatodes_caudiscutatus_male2.jpg

The golden-tailed gecko Strophurus taenicauda has a beautiful black-and-silver 'netted' colouration with an orange-brown tail stripe and a bright red eye; their behavioural adaptation of being able to spray distasteful chemicals from their tail just make them even more interesting:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e5/Golden_Tailed_Gecko.jpg

I also like the psychedelic rock gecko Cnemaspis psychedelica mentioned earlier in the thread; I found yesterday this paper about a conservation breeding centre built for them in southern Vietnam, with Cologne Zoo being one of the main partners involved:
https://www.rufford.org/files/Zool. Garten N.F. 85 (2016) 224–239.pdf
 
DesertRhino150 said:
These are some of my favourite geckos, beside ones already mentioned here:

The golden gecko Gekko badenii only has gold present on its back, sometimes in thick bands, and on its tail, with the limbs and head a pale grey; it is unfortunate that its subtle beauty has partly resulted in it ending up on the endangered list:
https://www.aquasnack.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Gekko-badenii-Golden-Gecko.jpg

The cat gecko Aeluroscalabotes felinus does have something about that makes it look quite unlike any other gecko - it might perhaps the proportion of the legs, body and head that makes it so unique-looking:
Cat gecko male | Outback Reptiles

The shieldhead gecko Gonatodes caudiscutatus of South America has beautiful white and blue spots on a dark body, with a black-and-yellow striped head:
http://www.dwarfgeckos.com/gonatodes/g_cau/images/gonatodes_caudiscutatus_male2.jpg

The golden-tailed gecko Strophurus taenicauda has a beautiful black-and-silver 'netted' colouration with an orange-brown tail stripe and a bright red eye; their behavioural adaptation of being able to spray distasteful chemicals from their tail just make them even more interesting:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e5/Golden_Tailed_Gecko.jpg

I also like the psychedelic rock gecko Cnemaspis psychedelica mentioned earlier in the thread; I found yesterday this paper about a conservation breeding centre built for them in southern Vietnam, with Cologne Zoo being one of the main partners involved:
https://www.rufford.org/files/Zool. Garten N.F. 85 (2016) 224–239.pdf
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Thats a brilliant set of species, thanks for sharing!

I was really surprised about the cat gecko. They are interesting, I never used to classify them as beautiful. But yes, Really like the golden-tailed gecko as well.
 
Onychorhynchus coronatus said:
Oh no , don't worry about it , I definitely didn't interpret your comment that way at all. The thing is in these strange times we are all covering our backs now so it is understandable. Of course, I agree, there were things that Durrell did that would be frowned upon by the moral standards of today.

For example, the chimpanzee (I think it was called Chumly wasn't it ?) being dressed up in human clothes and being kept as a pet wouldn't be seen as a positive thing by any means in todays world. However, back then it was the norm and there were chimpanzee tea parties at zoos, the first television adverts were broadcasting commercials for tea and cigarettes using chimps dressed this way, there were chimps performing in circuses and best experimented on in laboratories, people could buy pet chimps from London, New York and Parisian petshops etc .

I remember reading in his biography that when this chimp escaped from the London zoo where it had been sent and was shot dead by a police marksman this deeply impacted Durrell and made him reflect morally on the role he had played in wrongly humanizing this animal. If I remember correctly from my reading this incident deeply depressed Gerald and his subsequent contributions to great ape conservation with the Western Lowland gorilla and the Sumatran orangutang reflect someone determined and deeply committed to conserving these species.

The same could be said with his early days as a young man collecting animals for zoos from West and Central Africa and Northern and Southern South America. He saw first hand that zoos had to be reformed from the Victorian stamp book collection mentality and early on saw the anthropogenic stressors that were driving population declines of species in the wild.

As a result of this, he drew back from being complicit in these practices and said "No, I'm not doing this anymore, this is morally wrong and you can count me out". He then developed a strong conservation ethos that was uniquely his own vision and he applied it and promoted it and fought for his ideals despite being rejected and being seen as a renegade, a joke and an upstart / firebrand by the old boys network and the zoo establishment.

What I'm trying to say is that Durrell, though not perfect (no human is) and having some significant flaws was ultimately a revolutionary figure for conservation and some of the woke crew who would paint him as some kind of mediocre old colonial racist really do not know what they are going on about.
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Sorry if I phrased things wrong, I am in absolute agreement with everything you're saying and I'm not for any second saying that he was a colonial racist or anything like that, quite the opposite in fact, just that some of the things he talks about in his early books (and which he clearly later disagreed with himself) might make for slightly uncomfortable reading for those who are not familiar with the customs of that era if that makes sense.
I didn't know that the chimpanzee (you were right with Chumley) incident was such a turning point. So just to clarify I am a huge fan of Durrell and always have been and have absolutely nothing at all against the man himself, I was just saying that some of the customs of the time mentioned in some of his early books might come as a bit of a shock to the uninitiated but then again I know that Durrell did not agree with those either and indeed fought to bring an end to them. So no need to try to argue with me as I already agree with everything you're saying
 
CheeseChameleon2007 said:
Yeah, they have superb eyelashes. ;)
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Yes! The eyelashes are fantastic. I remember handling a friend's crested gecko and being amazed by the eyelashes (actually scales) shortly before it launched itself out of my hands and made a brief break for freedom (which its owner swiftly put a stop to). Out of interest does anyone know whether there is any evolutionary function to the eyelashes?
 
Greenshank said:
Yes! The eyelashes are fantastic. I remember handling a friend's crested gecko and being amazed by the eyelashes (actually scales) shortly before it launched itself out of my hands and made a brief break for freedom (which its owner swiftly put a stop to). Out of interest does anyone know whether there is any evolutionary function to the eyelashes?
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I actually don't know why they have these "eyelashes". Is a defining characteristic though.
 
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