Posted by Alex Harper on July 01, 2003 at 23:29:01:
In Reply to: Re: Here's my version of Summer Birdwatching today posted by Jerry Reed on July 01, 2003 at 13:28:07:
These Geckos, obviously from the Meditteranean area, has been introduced into numerous areas of Florida by escapes or releases of the pet trade. They are found along the east coast of Florida from about Titusville, which is near Cape Canaveral and down the coast with scattered populations. Among those scattered populations they live in Martin, Palm Beach, and Port St. Lucie counties. They have a good sized population in the Florida Keys. There are some reports in the Miami area, but mostly many miles south of where I found them. Other populations or in small surburban areas like Orlando, Okeechobee, and other areas in Central Florida. I caught and saw 10+ of them catching insects at night near a Holiday Inn in Titusville. They are small, almost always less than 5 inches long. They are quite easy to catch too.
They are a creamish color with dark spots and bumps all across their body, except their underside. They eat smaller lizards, spiders and insects. Unfortunataly, they are quickly being over-powered and over-populated by the much larger and aggresive Tropical House Geckos, Common House Geckos, and Indo-pacific Geckos. In other areas wher many other Gecko species live, such as the Moorish Wall Gecko, they are decreasing too. They are not aggresive and are not inclined to bite. They are similar to many other geckos that live in Southern Europe, North Africa, and Western Asia. There are many geckos just like them. I would look at some sites searched under "Meditteranean Gecko"