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50 free Gecko trivia questions with answers — nature quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Geckos are the most species-rich group of lizards, with close to 2,000 kinds, and they do a lot of things other lizards cannot: chirp and bark, see colour in near-darkness, lick their own eyeballs clean, and walk across ceilings on feet covered in millions of microscopic hairs. This quiz covers the physics of that famous grip, why most geckos have no eyelids, how often they replace their teeth, and how the word 'gecko' itself is an imitation of a lizard's call. It also visits the species people actually meet: the leopard gecko sometimes called the first domesticated lizard, the loud and bad-tempered tokay, the crested gecko that was thought extinct until 1994, the house geckos that hunt around porch lights, the New Caledonian giant, the Jaragua sphaero that fits on a US quarter, and the Cockney-accented gecko who sells car insurance on American television. Easy questions ask about eyelids and tails; hard ones want seta counts, adhesion forces and a Greek myth. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on geckos and the species involved, and each question carries the sentence that supports it. Our Lizards and Reptiles quizzes go wider if you want more.
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Q 01Geckos are found on every continent except which one?
Antarctica
They stick to warm climates, which is why so many species end up living in people's houses in the tropics.
Q 02Roughly how many gecko species exist, making them the most species-rich group of lizards?
Nearly 2,000
That is more than a quarter of all lizard species; the suborder Gekkota is split into seven families and about 125 genera.
Q 03Geckos are unique among lizards for what ability?
Making vocalisations
Most use chirps and clicks socially, tokays have a famously loud mating call, and some hiss when threatened.
Q 04Most geckos lack eyelids; instead the eye is covered by a transparent membrane called what?
The brille
Since they cannot blink, they lick the brille clean with their tongues whenever it gets dusty.
Q 05How do eyelid-less geckos keep their eyes clean and moist?
They lick them
The only geckos with true movable eyelids are the family Eublepharidae, which includes the leopard gecko.
Q 06A gecko's colour vision in low light is roughly how much more sensitive than a human's?
350-fold
Nocturnal geckos evolved from day-active ancestors that had lost their rod cells, so they re-engineered their cones for night work instead.
Q 07Which household pests do house geckos helpfully eat, making them welcome guests in warm countries?
Moths and mosquitoes
They hunt around porch lights at night, and their chirping is often the first sign one has moved in.
Q 08The smallest gecko, the Jaragua sphaero, measures about how long?
16 mm
It was discovered in 2001 on a small island off Hispaniola and weighs a little over a tenth of a gram.
Q 09The word 'gecko' comes from a Malay word that imitates what?
The call of certain geckos
The tokay's croak gave the whole group its name, in Malay, Latin and English alike.
Q 10What do many geckos do with their shed skin?
Eat it
Leopard geckos shed every two to four weeks; young ones may shed weekly.
Q 11Roughly what share of gecko species have adhesive toe pads?
About 60%
The pads evolved independently in around eleven gecko lineages and were lost again in at least nine.
Q 12Gecko adhesion was long credited to which weak intermolecular attraction?
Van der Waals forces
A 2014 study argued the grip is mainly electrostatic, from contact electrification, rather than van der Waals or capillary forces.
Q 13Which slippery material is notably hard for geckos to stick to?
PTFE (Teflon)
Its very low surface energy defeats the setae; the same setae are self-cleaning and shed dirt within a few steps.
Q 21Legless 'snake lizards' in which family are actually geckos?
Pygopodidae
They are one of the seven families in the suborder Gekkota; the blind lizards of Dibamidae were once lumped in but no longer are.
Q 22The most commonly kept pet gecko cannot climb vivarium glass because it lacks what?
Sticky toe pads
That species is the leopard gecko, whose movable eyelids mark it out as a member of the Eublepharidae.
Q 23Ptychozoon geckos of Southeast Asia are known as 'flying' or 'parachute' geckos because of what?
Wing-like flaps of skin along the body
Q 14How does a gecko unstick its foot from a surface to take the next step?
It hyperextends the toes backward
The peeling works like removing tape, freeing the microscopic spatulae one by one so only a little force is needed.
Q 15About how many hair-like setae are packed into each square millimetre of a gecko's footpad?
14,000
Each seta is 5 micrometres across and tipped with hundreds of even smaller spatulae, each shorter than a wavelength of visible light.
Q 16In theory, the setae of a typical 70-gram gecko could support what weight?
133 kg
That is close to two thousand times its own body weight; in practice geckos run well below their maximum grip.
Q 17Complete immersion in what reduces gecko adhesion, even though a little humidity improves it?
Water
Thin molecular water layers on the setae actually increase the surface energy and strengthen the grip; a full soaking does the opposite.
Q 18The mossy leaf-tailed gecko hides its outline using what?
A dermal flap laid against the tree
Its bark-and-lichen colouring plus that fringe of skin makes it practically invisible on a trunk by day.
Q 19How often can a gecko replace each of its roughly 100 teeth?
Every 3 to 4 months
A small replacement tooth waits beside each grown one; unusually for squamates, geckos have lost the palatal teeth on the roof of the mouth.
Q 20The oldest known fossils of modern geckos are preserved in amber from which country?
Myanmar
They are about 100 million years old and already show adhesive pads on the feet.
The flaps also help them melt into tree bark when they are not gliding between trunks.
Q 24In Greek myth, Demeter turned the boy Ascalabus into a gecko for what offence?
Mocking her as she drank
She splashed the rest of her drink over him and he became a multicoloured lizard.
Q 25The leopard gecko is sometimes called the first what?
Domesticated species of lizard
Decades of captive breeding have produced dozens of colour morphs far from the wild spotted pattern.
Q 26The leopard gecko is native to dry regions of Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, Nepal and which other country?
India
Winter there can drop below 10 °C, sending the geckos underground into brumation to live on stored fat.
Q 27The leopard gecko's genus name Eublepharis means what in Greek?
Good eyelid
Movable upper and lower eyelids are the trait that separates its subfamily from all other geckos; macularius means 'spotted'.
Q 28A leopard gecko's thick tail works like a camel's hump because it stores what?
Fat
Dropping the tail to escape a predator is costly for exactly that reason: the gecko loses its emergency larder.
Q 29After a leopard gecko drops its tail, the detached tail can keep twitching for up to how long?
30 minutes
Fractures built into the tailbone let it snap off cleanly, and rapid vasoconstriction keeps blood loss minimal.
Q 30With good care, captive leopard geckos can live for more than how many years?
20
In the wild the average is under five years, so a pet gecko can outlive four wild generations.