Licked clean!

By AG STAFF March 2, 2016
Reading Time: < 1 Print this page
Due to a lack of eyelids, geckos use their tongues like windscreen wipers to keep their eyes clean. The red dots around the eye of this southern leaf-tailed gecko (Saltuarius swaini) are red mites and are harmless in small numbers.

This week’s reader photo was taken by Jules Farquhar in Lamington National Park, Queensland.

“On a recent trip to southeast Queensland, we found ourselves driving the roads late one night through the Lamington Plateau rainforest. With torches pointing out of every window of the car, we were hoping to find the southern leaf-tailed gecko. Within 15 minutes we had found one large individual high up a tree and after a few hours we observed a total of eight southern leaf-tailed geckos on trees adjacent to the road,” he said.

“They blend in quite well with the moss and lichen on the large fig trees, however their eyes give off a dull reflection when illuminated and they can be located in the light of a torch. I used a macro lens to photograph this lizard on a large fig tree in the rain and was lucky enough to get a photograph of the gecko cleaning its face with its tongue.”

Jules is a wildlife photographer studying environmental science in Victoria. He has a particular interest in Australian reptiles and enjoys nothing more than travelling around Australia in search of new reptiles to photograph.

Share your own photography and it could be featured on Australian Geographic online!
You can submit your images to us directly HERE