Friday, August 29, 2008

The big(gish) reveal

So yesterday's mystery beastie was neither armadillo nor aye-aye but it did begin with 'A'.


Aristelliger lar



This is Aristelliger lar. It emerged from the roof of our hotel restarant and shocked the hell out of me. Why? Well its frankly the biggest gecko I've ever seen. At least equal to the giant tokays that terrorised my shower in Perhentian, Malaysia. This thing was pushing 12 inches long and built like a brick outhouse and yet it was still able to walk up vertical walls without any bother.

Of course when I hunted it down with my camera later it was less cooperative hence the shots here.

5 comments:

kd said...

It now is so obviously a tail in yesterday's photo! That was a great puzzle!

/krys

Anonymous said...

Cute in the photo, but maybe a little to big in real life? When I saw the previous post, I almost wondered if it was a tarantula leg! Oh boy, you have some really interesting creepy crawlies there in the tropics!
- Karen
http://greenwalks.wordpress.com

Lucy Corrander said...

It's a lovely, tantalising shot.

And I enjoy the diagonals in it.

Lucy Corrander
PICTURES JUST PICTURES

Hugh Griffith said...

I accidentally cheated. I knew it was a lizard tail (with a regenerated tip), and clicked on the photo to get a closer look -- which brought me to your flickr page, and the next shot in the photostream was the answer. Anyway, it's a nice picture. It gives the essence of geckoness.

tai haku said...

I'm glad everyone had fun.

Karen - geckos are always cute in real life regardless of size - I think its something to do with the way their mouths turn up (a bit like a dolphin's "smile"). That said these big ones pack a fairish bite if you play with them.

Hugh - I thought that might happen to a few of you; the last time I did one of these I accidentally eft the photo name unaltered so whenever anybody's mouse passed over it the latin name flashed up.