Real photograph Tokay gecko
Gekko gecko
say it TOH-kay GEK-oh
Why we love them
The tokay gecko is a big, brightly coloured lizard from the warm forests of Asia. It has a soft, velvety, blue-grey skin sprinkled with orange and red spots, and two large eyes with slit-shaped pupils for seeing in the dark. It is one of the biggest geckos in the world.
This gecko is famous for its voice. At night the males call out a loud, clear “to-kay! to-kay!” that gives the animal its name. People all over its home range know that sound, and it can be surprisingly loud for such a small creature.
Tokay geckos are bold and full of character. They are climbers who spend their time up in trees, on cliffs, and often on the walls of houses. They come out at night to hunt, snapping up crickets, grasshoppers, cockroaches, and moths, and now and then a small lizard.
Like many geckos, the tokay has a clever trick: it can slowly lighten or darken the colour of its skin. This helps it blend into a tree trunk or a shadowy wall so that hungry animals find it harder to spot.
Tokay geckos are still found across a wide part of Asia and are listed as Least Concern. Even so, huge numbers are collected from the wild to be sold as pets and for traditional medicine, so their numbers are going down in some places. There are now international rules to keep an eye on this trade and help the tokay gecko stay common in the wild.
My home
Tropical rainforest, trees, cliffs
Where I live
Asia
What I eat
Crickets, grasshoppers, cockroaches, moths, small lizards
How long I am
0.25–0.4 m
The tokay gecko is named after its loud call, which sounds like a bold "to-kay! to-kay!" ringing out at night.
It is one of the largest geckos, growing up to about forty centimetres long, and it wears a blue-grey coat covered in bright orange and red spots.
A tokay gecko can slowly lighten or darken its skin to blend into its surroundings.
Every tokay gecko can feel happy, scared and loved — just like you.
Looking after my friends
Doing wellThere are lots of these animals in the wild right now. That is good news!
You can help by learning their names, keeping wild places clean, and telling someone why this animal matters.
Where this came from
- Gekko gecko (Tokay Gecko) — Red List status — IUCN Red List of Threatened Species
- Gekko gecko (Tokay Gecko) — Animal Diversity Web, University of Michigan Museum of Zoology
- Tokay gecko — Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
