As night falls on the northern forests of Madagascar, trees come alive. What appears to be a piece of bark peels off a tree trunk, and starts slowly crawling along a branch. It’s actually Uroplatus garamaso, a newly identified species of leaf-tailed gecko.
This animal is a dazzling camouflager — better than the chameleon — but it’s long been hiding in plain sight. And many of the features that make it unique are still an evolutionary mystery.
“They look totally different from all of the other reptiles,” said Mark D. Scherz, curator of herpetology at the Natural History Museum of Denmark and a co-author of the paper describing the find. The 22 species of leaf-tailed geckoes that are unique to Madagascar can be split into two categories: those who’ve evolved to look uncannily like leaves, and those who imitate tree bark. U. garamaso and the others that blend into bark have a fringe hugging their flanks and legs, a beard around the bottom of their chin, and flattened tails.
During the day, they fold out that fringe and rest on tree trunks, becoming “practically invisible,” Scherz said. At night, they come out of that sleeping position and prowl the forest for invertebrate prey, like “little leopards or jaguars,” he added.
U. garamaso is so talented at disguise that it’s long been mistaken for another leaf-tailed gecko in Madagascar called U. henkeli. It was probably British pet traders in the early 2000s who first wondered if they had their hands on a different beast, Scherz said. The traders noticed small physical differences. This lizard is smaller than U. henkeli and has a narrower tail. Its diamond-pupiled eyes are tinted a gaudier yellowish-red. — NYT
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