I’ve been hearing this strange noise since I moved into my current apartment. We neighbors summized it was the green anole we have seen. I thought it was a bird or a frog. We normally hear it at night and rarely during daylight hours. Finally, the boy next door, 7 years old, identified the sound as from the Tokay Gecko. I said, “I’ve got to see this thing.” Well, tonight I finally did for the first time. It was close to full grown. The tail was very fat as well, and the boy next door said they store fat in their tails. Amazing young boy! He’s so knowledgeable!

The Tokay Gecko (Gekko gecko) is a nocturnal arboreal gecko, ranging from northeast India and Bangladesh, throughout Southeast Asia, Philippines to Indonesia and western New Guinea. Its native habitat is rainforest trees and cliffs, and it also frequently adapts to rural human habitations, roaming walls and ceilings at night in search of insect prey. Increasing urbanization is reducing its range. In the late 1980s and early 1990s it was introduced into Hawaii, Florida, Texas, Belize, and several Caribbean islands, where it can be considered an invasive species. The Tokay Gecko is known as a Tuko or Toko in the Philippines for its characteristic vocalizations where people have mixed feelings about it ranging from terror of the mistaken belief that its feet can tear your skin off to great love and admiration for its entertaining vocalizations. In the Philippines most people respect it and value it because it eats dangerous pests such as scorpions and giant centipedes.