# A friend found his outside his window...



## chinoanoah (Mar 9, 2009)

Any idea what type of gecko it is?


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## mongo77 (Apr 28, 2008)

Looks like a tokay gecko


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## chinoanoah (Mar 9, 2009)

Thanks! This is cool, found this on wikipedia:

"The Tokay is also considered the "bulldog" of the Gecko world due to the fact that when they bite, they often won't let go for up to several hours at a time or even several days, and generally cannot be forcibly removed without causing harm to the Gecko. One way of getting a Tokay to release its hold is to submerge the animal in water, which will encourage the lizard to let go, without causing it any harm or undue stress.[3]"


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## BBoyette (Mar 9, 2009)

Yep..nasty little terds


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## Philsuma (Jul 18, 2006)

They are established in Tampa, despite the cold, which they apparently handle well.

Especially around the docks area....wharehouses.

Don't worry about the bite...hard and breaks skin but nothing compared to an adult Burmese python...no biggie and it will let go......eventually.


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## crw.dft (Oct 14, 2008)

I've found with the stubborn biting animals that a few drops of rubbing alcohol right by their noses will make them let go real quick. You just have to be sure that you don't get it on the actual animal itself. This trick served me well when I had a very nasty savannah monitor. We had to wear welding gloves to handle the beast.

P.S. Definitely a tokay, and a beautiful one at that. If only they weren't satan's spawn


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## Julio (Oct 8, 2007)

that one has tremendous coloration on it!! they are feisty though.


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## d-prime (Sep 29, 2008)

Its pretty interesting how both tokays and day geckos which are both respectively native to Madagascar and asia have now established themselves in florida. I feel like these animals can get out of hand like cane toads especially since these are large animals that grow up to 17 inches...


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## Julio (Oct 8, 2007)

well Florida has a relatively tropical climate so its easy for them to do so, what species of day gecko is now established in FL?


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## Phyllobates (Dec 12, 2008)

Ah Tokays. Back when I used to work in a pet store we used to make the new people clean the tokay enclosure then giggle in delight as we heard their (the new people's) screams of surprise an agony.


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## ravengritz (Mar 2, 2009)

Phyllobater said:


> Ah Tokays. Back when I used to work in a pet store we used to make the new people clean the tokay enclosure then giggle in delight as we heard their (the new people's) screams of surprise an agony.


That's fantastic. When I had a pair we would put a pair of leather work gloves into the tank to remove them for cleaning. They'd latch onto the gloves and we could pull the buggers out without getting nailed.


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## flyangler18 (Oct 26, 2007)

Cranky little bastards, they are. I consider it a rite of passage for everyone who worked in a pet store to get nailed by a tokay (I worked at a sizeable South Jersey pet store in the mid-late 90s while I was in HS that has since closed their doors). 

The bark is rather comical, though. Makes their ill temper a bit more palatable.


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## SMenigoz (Feb 17, 2004)

Julio said:


> well Florida has a relatively tropical climate so its easy for them to do so, what species of day gecko is now established in FL?


Unsure about the mainland, but a few of the keys now have reproducing populations of grandis, the giant day gecko.
Scott


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## bmasar (Dec 13, 2007)

d-prime said:


> Its pretty interesting how both tokays and day geckos which are both respectively native to Madagascar and asia have now established themselves in florida. I feel like these animals can get out of hand like cane toads especially since these are large animals that grow up to 17 inches...


I think HR-669 was intended to stop stuff like this.


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## divingne1 (Mar 21, 2008)

My experience with Tokay geckos...the devil in pretty skin. My friend thought it would be a good idea to let 2 tokays loose in her house to kill the godzilla roaches (palmetto bugs for those who live in FL) that flew or crawled in (EWWW). She got tired of the pop they made when you killed them (again EWWWW) so she thought they would take care of the issue. They did wonders for those nasty bugs but boy did they make so much racket at night, I could not sleep there. When she went to sell her house, we tried to catch them to get them out of the house. We tried everything we could find to catch them. Not only will they bite the living snot out of you but they are fast as all get out..she sold the house and left the buyers with a pair of mean exterminators.


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## Julio (Oct 8, 2007)

I remember somone having a tame large male once at a show, he was like a little puppy dog, and was getting offers from everyone to buy him and he woudl not sell. Wish i had taken pics.


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## d-prime (Sep 29, 2008)

My grandparents live in fort lauterdale, and in the backyard I have caught some remarkably large madagascariensis specimens..


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## Dragas (Sep 4, 2008)

There was all kinds of critters living outside our porch in Florida (and all kinds inside too), it was great. 

I also let a juvi nile monitor bite my finger, I had to feel what it was like. Wasn't so pleasant, the only thing that got him off was spray bottle of water.


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## Philsuma (Jul 18, 2006)

bmasar said:


> I think HR-669 was intended to stop stuff like this.


It.._WAS_....but it didn't pass, and likely never will.

Scott, my girlfriend and I went to Key West for the day, yesterday and stopped a few times on the way (it's a 2 hour trip even from Miami).

We saw _P.M. Madagascarensis, P. Grandis, P. Standingi..._all are established in the keys area. Mad Mad has been seen pretty far north of Miami but I have yet to see one in northern Broward Co.

The invasive lizard that will really flip your lid is _Chamaeleo calyptratus. A_pparently, perfectly suited to the biome that is Southern Florida....along with_Python molurus bivittatus_, that is. 

Humans have been transporting animals and transplanting them as far back as history will allow -Horses / Mustangs. Many Madagascar Day geckos and Chameleons are found in almost every neighboring island - transplanted for personal gardens.


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## alluringeli (Apr 20, 2009)

That looks like a tokay they are nasty and love to bite. no one wants them cause there so mean. they sell them at the expos for like 8....


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## jpg (Jan 3, 2009)

NERD has a number of tame handleable Tokay geckos . The swear with a little work you can tame them .


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## GeorgiaB (Apr 23, 2009)

They can be tamed.... 

I worked at a pet store a couple of years ago and a tokay came in in very very bad condition. His toe pads were deteriorated, his tail had recently fallen off, he was starving and very weak. He wouldnt eat in store so I took him home and nursed him back to health which involved hand feeding him crickets. 

Finally he started to get better and by that time he was completely tame. I would put my hand in his tank and he would climb onto my hand. I am a student and he would sit on my shoulders for hours as I did homework or while I was working. Everyone got quite a kick out of it.  

Even now he wont bite me and with other people he does a kind of warning nip, he doesnt chomp down and he lets go right away. I probably wouldnt have the guts to try and train a new tokay though


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## Ziggi (Jan 23, 2009)

Yep tokay for sure.
Did you friend try to grab it  
Would of been a funny sight to see.
I also have an adult male tokay that I can manage to handle if i"m careful, I wouldn't let anyone try though lol, they would take a good chunk of skin along with them.


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## james67 (Jun 28, 2008)

Philsuma said:


> They are established in Tampa, despite the cold, which they apparently handle well.
> 
> Especially around the docks area....wharehouses.
> 
> Don't worry about the bite...hard and breaks skin but nothing compared to an adult Burmese python...no biggie and it will let go......eventually.


hah! thats funny. i used to catch these in the Tampa area as a kid.( this is where i grew up) i was sure that they were tokays, but i always knew (as a kid) that they couldn't really be tokays, because they aren't from FL. i guess they were!!! i always looked back on those memories thinking i must be delusional. (st. pete treasure island area to be exact)

james


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## Peter Keane (Jun 11, 2005)

There was a book or video on how to tame your tokay... truly beautiful animals.. I had gotten a few captive bred babies and handled them constantly and I thought they were tame and did the shoulder thing.. until he bit my ear lobe.. (I was eating at the time and my chewing must have made my ear lobes move as my wife explained it and probably looked to him like a fat juicy wax worm, lol) it was a shock at first but quite comical seeing this in a mirror looked like a huge lizard earing.. did not hurt.. as earlobe doesn't have many nerves in it I presume.. but has never bitten me since.. though I never ate while he was on my shoulder again.. lol... Peter


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## stemcellular (Jun 26, 2008)

flyangler18 said:


> Cranky little bastards, they are. I consider it a rite of passage for everyone who worked in a pet store to get nailed by a tokay (I worked at a sizeable South Jersey pet store in the mid-late 90s while I was in HS that has since closed their doors).
> 
> The bark is rather comical, though. Makes their ill temper a bit more palatable.


Ok, so this really is weird. I worked at a Central Jersey (Cliffwood Beach/Hazlet) pet shop from middle school through early high school before it closed.


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## bobberly1 (Jul 16, 2008)

You guys are lucky, I would kill for a job like that (or a job at all...). If only I had a car or lived in a more urban area.


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## Fini (Sep 14, 2008)

I used to have one of those little pitbulls. It unintentionally got out of it's enclosure and just started living off what it could find in the house. Before it disappeared for good we had no bugs or anything else for that matter around the house. They make great pest controllers, just not a lap dog.


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