This is a gecko, of which there are many here in Florida. I'm glad that they are harmless, and not as big as alligators, because you can't venture outside without seeing them everywhere. They can move like lightning, and our dog, Betty, stopped chasing them years ago, knowing that she had no hope of catching them.
This is a young specimen, perhaps an adolescent or young adult. He or she is obviously adequately fed, and the many fragments of insect debris on the screen show that she/he is a good hunter.
These reptiles have five fingers and toes on their extremities. They should thus be contrasted with the repto-avian "Bird People," the desiccated bodies of which were discovered in late 2015 near Nazca, Peru (and about which I have recently written). I'm a poet, not a scientist, but I'm guessing that we humans are more closely related to geckos, with their five fingers, than we are to the Bird People, with their three.
It should be noted, by the way, with regard to the Bird People, that their fingers have five joints, instead of the three that we have, thus eliminating the need for an opposable thumb.
Text and image Copyright © 2023 by Donald C. Traxler.
