Mildly Menacing Mating Calls Lead to Discovery of New Gecko Species
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Mildly Menacing Mating Calls Lead to Discovery of New Gecko Species
"With his pants slung over one arm and his flashlight sweeping the sand, the researcher, Francois Becker, was huntingnot for the black rhinos, elephants, ostriches or hyenas that make their homes there but for an elusive creature called the barking gecko. These ultra-shy lizards are only about the size of a stick of string cheese, but they possess powerful vocal cords to sing their nightly love songs."
"Males issue the calls, which sound like a cartoon villain's evil laugh, from the entrance of their burrows to attract mates (and sometimes frighten tourists, who can be surprised that such small creatures can make such a loud noise). But because the animals' calls vary slightly in pitch and frequency, they also intrigued Becker, who was doing research at Gobabeb Namib Research Institute."
Francois Becker conducted nighttime fieldwork across the Namib Desert, searching for the diminutive barking gecko. Adult males produce loud, villain-like calls from burrow entrances to attract mates and deter intruders. The geckos are ultra-shy, roughly the size of a stick of string cheese, and possess true vocal cords rare among lizards. Becker observed consistent differences in call pitch and frequency between two nearby populations previously labeled as a single species, Ptenopus garrulus. His prior experience with frogs suggested that distinct mating calls can indicate reproductive isolation. Those acoustic differences prompted further investigation into cryptic species diversity within the barking gecko complex.
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