I woke up one morning, woozy and somewhat apprehensive for the start of the day. To get in the spirit, I figured I'd toss the window shutters open with great vigor in order to celebrate the sun's cheerful rays. Resisting the pounding desire to slide into an alarm-abhorring coma once more, I lowered to the floor and unlatched the balcony doors doubling as shutters. With a mighty shove they spread wide, alerting me to not only a beautiful morning view, but an awkard and light sounding "splap" as well.
Directing my eyes to the source of the splap, I spied a small dead gecko. I was first stricken by grief at its obvious dead nature, embodied in the form of a short shriek from my throat. Yet, it was very simple to recover when considering the hilarity of his (or her; while many are hermaphrodites, sexual equality ought still apply in the reptilian realm) morbid end - it seemed that the little one had been flattened to pancake status after being forced to occupy the space between the door/shutter and its frame. Apparently and unfortunately I had not noticed this terrible forced compression in action the night before when closing the doors on the poor bastard. Shame. Still, I laughed all the harder (and sorrier) when I noticed that there was a small cross within a circle imprinted very clearly in the lizard's back; no, not some epidermic cry for a medic, but rather the imprint left by the head of quite a large screw sharing the "pancake zone" of the doorframe.
In an attempt to clean my soul and respect the lizard's, I planned to give it a modest fueneral by flicking it off of the balcony. What I learned was astounding - though long dead, Mr. (or Mrs.) Gecko would nut budge.
Science of Standing Your Ground
"Every square millimetre of a gecko's footpad contains about 14,000 hair-like setae. Each seta has a diameter of 5 micrometres. Human hair varies from 18 to 180 micrometre, so the thinnest human hair could hold at least 12 setae. Each seta is in turn tipped with between 100 and 1,000 spatulae. Each spatula is 0.2 micrometres long (200 billionths of a metre), or just below the wavelength of visible light."
This quote from Wikipedia's entry for "Gecko" shares some facts on a very well-studied research topic, as any Google Scholar search for "gecko feet" will prove. I had known vaguely about this before, and sure there were geckos in Miami, but never had I been afforded the chance to observe in such a direct (and morticious) way. If you read more, you will learn that weak molecular attraction forces, called Van der Waals forces, perpetuate the super strength. While these relatively weak intermolecular forces are not usually very powerful, their multiplication to the quantity mentioned in the above quote can maxmize an average gecko's feet surface area (FSA) weight-holding capacity at 290 pounds. This depends on many things - humidity, quality of the surface gripped, e.g... but astounding none the less considering the "average gecko" weights around 2.5 ounces. That means they have the potential to support nearly 2,000 times their own weight.
Goofy Gecko Games
Returning to the pancake-gecko, I found the only way to honor said lizard in my chosen way was to first lift him straight upwards with the help of a butter knife slid underneath his vertically depressed body - much like a spatula Aunt Jemima might use for her own syrupy flapjacks. I had not actually done the above research yet, I was merely curious as I'd seen vague mentions of the pads' effectiveness before. Thus, before allowing the animal the eternal slumber, I decided to make some observations. The animal was dead, and I wasn't yet sure that the pad technology was entirely due to its mechanical structure; perhaps some muscle action or goo were needed. Would it hold more weight now that it was after the rapture? To test, I gently lifted the lizard from the knife and pressed its frail feet against outside brick wall adjacent to my balcony, and lo!
(Note the unnatural and comical mark left by the doorjamb's screw head.) I returned inside to grab my camera. What I found on my return was also surprising; a waiting customer for the hanging diner I had just created:
This bird, known as a Kookaburra, is responsible for the loud monkey-like hollers heard from Australia's treetops. Onomatopoeic representation of said call might look like this: ooh ooh ooOOHH OOHOH AHHH AHHHHHH AHHHHH AHHHHH! This terrifying battle cry, accompanied by the animal's formidable beak (if one were to compare to a sparrow) made me freeze. I was standing between this animal and it's possible breakfast. But, aha, do Kookaburra eat small lizards of the bush? Another learning experience loomed!
Aviary Avariciousness
I found that the bird was not interested in hunting the gecko down while I stood nearby - it glanced at the gecko, then away at the trees; personifying itself as a human trying to whistle itself into the image of a casual visitor instead of a starving hunter eager for a free lunch. I decided to peel the lizard off, and back away... extending the offer to the animal at a distance.
You can perhaps see the lizard body on the cement balcony as the bird waits on the steel railing.
Before I could say "ooh Ooh OOH HHAAA AAAHHH AAHHHAAHHH," the bird dove, retrieved, and was off to enjoy its catered dish on a nearby tree branch.
Oh the adventures one has in the Australian "bush!*"
*Note: in this situation, the use of "bush" would actually be like referring to an American suburb as the Wild West.
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