The house cleaners of Zulia State
These lizards belong to the great cosmopolitan family of the "geckos ", called Gekkonidae. Numerous species inhabit the tropics and are well-known to live inside or near human dwellings, where they are usually seen walking at night by walls and roofs, hunting cockroaches and other insects. The Limpiacasas (house cleaner) of Zulia State, in contrast, belongs to a small group of diurnal geckos. This group of diurnal geckos, inhabits the tropical regions of America and is represented in Venezuela by fourteen species, most of which live in tropical humid forests, slithering agilely by the rough surfaces of the trunks of trees, hunting the insects that conform its favorite food. They eat small fruit flies, crickets, grasshoppers, butterflies, moths and beetle larvae. Males possess showy colors that they show to females during courtship. Once fecundated, a female is able to store the sperm for several months, fertilizing and laying an egg every month. The females of some species lay their eggs in communal nests in cracks among rocks. Up to thirty eggs of several females have been found in a single nest. The showy coloration of the males concentrates on the head, throat and shoulders. The markings confuse their depredators by breaking the typical shape of lizard in separate parts as the head and the body or, in two halves, like in the species that possess a white line skirted by black along the back of the body. Meanwhile, the females blend with their surroundings due to their rather pale and cryptic colors. |
