Part of a series of caches around the Rata St Loop Walk.
In the heart of our NZ forests lives the Gecko. Some interesting facts:
- Geckos are able to vocalise and many New Zealand species produce a chirping sound. Green geckos are quite loud for their size and produce a sound more like a ‘bark’
- Geckos have ‘sticky’ feet: their toes are covered with microscopic hairs that allow them to climb sheer surfaces and even walk upside down across the ceiling.
- Unlike skinks, geckos cannot blink and must lick their eyes to keep them moist.
- Geckos are able to ‘drop’ (autotomise) their tails. This is a predator defence mechanism—the tail continues to thrash around whilst the gecko makes its escape; the tail then regrows over the next few years.
- Geckos are found throughout New Zealand on both main islands and most offshore islands. They inhabit a wide range of altitudes (from sea level to c. 2200 m) and a variety of habitat types (forest and scrub, tussock grasslands, rock outcrops and scree).
- In New Zealand, geckos are extremely slow breeding and long-lived: some geckos have been shown to live for at least 42 years in the wild.
- Duvaucel’s gecko (H. duvaucelii) is the largest living gecko in New Zealand, and one of the biggest geckos in the world, attaining sizes of up to160 mm snout-vent length and 120 g.
- New Zealand geckos are unusual in that they give birth to live young rather than laying eggs; the only other geckos that do this live in New Caledonia.
- New Zealand geckos are omnivores. They mainly eat insects, e.g. moths and flies. However, they also enjoy the berries of plants such as Coprosma spp. and the nectar of some flowers.
BYO pen and extraction device as while the cache is small the log is tiny. Please place cache back away from view of mugglers who might like to take it home as a pet (which is illegal anyway)
Cache is 4-5 metres above the track and is not on the ground.