Lizard noises

31 Dec 2009 • By Stephen McGrath • Blog

Up until my travels through Asia I had no idea lizards made noises. In fact, I wouldn't have believed it no matter how hard you argued the fact. Then I met V online and started to discuss her phobia of reptiles, mostly with a degree of incredulity.
I mean, let's face it, lizards are very cute, right?
She mentioned that at nights these adorable little relics from another age would chirrup and chirp to each other, haunting her dreams and often keeping her from even falling asleep.

A few months passed and I was on the scuba component of my first trip, gallivanting around the Philippines. Sitting around the peaceful Anilao resort, quaffing some fine imported Aussie wine, I hear a "Tokol" sound. Joepi leaps to her feet exclaiming, "See? I told you!".  I still didn't believe that this noise could be coming from a lizard, and no visual could be made of said creature.

Many, many moons later and I've heard these sounds all over Asia.  Right now they come from my kitchen and laundry almost every night. Occasionally they sound very different, like the lizards are fighting over which juicy gnat each will dine on, but for the most part it's a consistent set of 6 or 7 short chirps, every 3-5 minutes.

Unlike V, I don't run and hide under the bed clothes or call the local lizard exterminator service (I doubt there is one). I welcome them into my rather bare apartment and treat them as much less cuddly versions of Mishka and Mushroom.  I don't have to worry about them jumping the fence or complaining about being stuck inside the house, but of course I don't get to hold them in my lap whilst writing blog posts.

Every now and then I leave a window open whilst the lights are on inside, enticing hordes of local flying dinner plates into my home, giving the lizards something to do while I'm working late. I wonder if some of the sounds they make late at night are their way of thanking me for that?

I'll try to record their sounds one day so I can share that with you – once my iPhone returns.

See the full gallery on posterous

Posted via email from RockPortrait in Vietnam

3 Responses

  1. What you heard was a Gecko and we call it a “Tuko!” Seeeee! I told you they made sounds! :-) Happy new year!

  2. Quyen Nguyen

    Did the lizards live in Australia make noise? or just because you haven’t pay attention on that yet till you live in Asia?

    Sometimes I spent hour to hour to observe they catch mosquitos, very fast and very accurate :-)

  3. I’m guessing that lizards in Australia make noises, but we don’t hear them because lizards don’t live inside houses there. The kind of lizards we see are out in the backyard or in the bush, and they spend their time staying out of human sight rather than talking to each other.

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