Tokay gecko

Tokay geckos eat bugs.

They eat moths, crickets, beetles and cockroaches. Big tokays can even catch a mouse.

Tokay geckos hunt at night. They usually sit still and wait for prey to come close, then grab it. Most of their food is insects and other small invertebrates: moths, grasshoppers, beetles, cockroaches, termites, crickets, mosquitoes and spiders.

Because they are so big, tokays can also catch small mice, rats, snakes and other geckos. In some places tokays and people share homes: the gecko shelters in the walls and ceiling and eats insects that people do not want.

Tokays are solitary, nocturnal sit-and-wait predators that keep a foraging area. The Smithsonian's National Zoo lists moths, locusts, grasshoppers, beetles, cockroaches, termites, crickets, mosquitoes and spiders, plus small rats, mice and snakes; the IUCN adds other geckos and small birds.

Because they eat a lot and thrive in buildings, they are sometimes used to control pest insects, and the zoo describes a mutualistic relationship in which a gecko shelters in the walls and ceilings of a home while eating unwanted insects.

Tokay geckos like to live alone.

At night the boys call "to-kay" to find a girl. If a tokay is scared, it hisses. Tokays can bite hard, so they are not for touching.

Tokay geckos live alone and only meet others in the breeding season. Each one guards its own patch, usually the male, and chases away other tokays and other animals that come too close.

They use their voices a lot. Males call "to-kay" to find females, and a frightened tokay hisses or croaks. Usually a tokay will run away, but if it is cornered it can give a hard bite, so tokays are animals to watch, not to handle.

Tokays are solitary, nocturnal and territorial; territories are usually defended by males and occasionally by females, against both other tokays and other species (Animal Diversity Web). Tokays communicate with their voices: males call to find mates, and threatened animals hiss or croak.

A tokay not defending its territory usually flees, but a cornered one bites quickly and hard. The Smithsonian's National Zoo also describes its keen chemical senses: sensory cells in the nostrils detect scents, and the tongue carries scent particles to the Jacobson's organ in the roof of the mouth.

Lots of tokay geckos live in Asia.

But people catch many of them to sell. Some countries now protect them, so they can stay wild.

Tokay geckos are listed as least concern because they are common across a huge area and do well around houses. But they have a big problem: people catch very large numbers of them.

Dried tokays are sold for traditional medicines, even though evidence does not support all the claims made about them, and live ones are sold as pets. In China tokays have become rare, and Vietnam lists them as threatened. Malaysia now protects them, and people need a permit to collect them.

The IUCN lists the tokay as Least Concern (assessed 2017, published 2019) because of its wide range, presumed large population, presence in protected areas and tolerance of modified habitat, but notes increasing exploitation and an unknown global trend. Studies it cites estimate about 2.5 million tokays exported from Thailand each year and 1.2 million dried specimens from Java; declines are reported in China, where it appears rare, and in Vietnam.

The Smithsonian's National Zoo notes that China's Red Data Book lists it as endangered and Vietnam's as threatened, that Malaysia protected it in 2010 with permits for harvesters, and that rumors in 2009 that tokays could cure HIV/AIDS, for which there is no evidence, caused a spike in trafficking. Introduced populations elsewhere come from the pet trade and cargo shipments.