Fascinating BBC footage of geckos coaxing leafhoppers to feed them honeydew. The lizards tap their feet or bob their heads, and the insect dutifully tosses them a bead of delicious tree sap. This definitely qualifies as bizarre zoology.
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« First Flight, then Sonar | Main | Enormous 'Devil Toad' Remains Discovered in Madagascar »
Gecko Begs Insect to Feed It Honeydew
Category: Lizard • gecko • insect • reptile
Posted on: February 18, 2008 11:12 AM, by ableiman
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Life Science
Brain & Behavior
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Comments
Maybe they saved them a bunch of money on their car insurance?
Seriously though, this has to be some form of symbiosis, what's the leafhopper getting out of this deal? I couldn't tell from the video (as it's hard to make out the leafhopper), but in at least one of those shots it looked like the gecko was standing on top of the leafhopper, so maybe the leafhoppers are just paying the geckos to get off of them.
Posted by: orclev | February 18, 2008 1:10 PM
i imagine the evolutionary subtitles go something like this:
gecko: "okay, i can see you there, leafhopper, despite the subtle camouflage... now i can eat you and take you out of the gene pool or you can cough-up a little honeydew, capiche?"
leafhopper: "deal"
Posted by: Rick MacPherson | February 18, 2008 1:26 PM
The leafhoppers really have some impressive camouflage. I wouldn't have known they were there if they weren't moving.
Could it be that the leafhopper is giving away extra sugars that it doesn't need? Maybe other animals could detect the sugar trail that a leafhopper might leave behind if it didn't feed geckos, basically pointing them in the direction of a tasty insect. The fact that it is camouflaged so well could be an indication that the gecko feeding behavior may be simply another form of camouflage, in that the leafhopper needs a way to live without attracting predators. After all, such perfect camouflage is an indication that this insect has a vested interest in hiding out in the open.
Posted by: Gary F | February 18, 2008 1:55 PM
Yah, it's getting rid of excess sugars - the tree sap it's sucking at contains far more sugar than the insect can use, so after filtering out the salts, protiens ansd as much sugar as it actually needs, most sap-sucking insects have a lot of honeydew left over to get rid of. Some of them spray it a fair distance too (probably so they can't be tracked down quite so easily - it's bit fast in the video, but these ones seem to fire the blob of honeydew with some force)
Posted by: Drhoz! | February 22, 2008 6:51 PM