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Sign up for our mailing list! We also have t-shirts and mugs with our logo!\n\nThanks to Riley, Richard, and Aiden and Aiden's unnamed friend for suggestions this week! We're going to learn about some geckos and other reptiles that live in trees. Thanks also to Llewelly for a small correction about lions. Also, I mispronounced Strophurus--it should be more like Stroff-YOUR-us but I'm too lazy to fix it.\n\nFurther reading:\n\nCancer Clues Found in Gene behind 'Lemon Frost' Gecko Color\n\nA chameleon's feets:\n\n\n\nA rare healthy lemon frost domestic leopard gecko (photo taken from article linked above):\n\n\n\nAn ordinary leopard gecko:\n\n\n\nI don't remember what kind of gecko this is (golden spiny-tailed?) but I love it:\n\n\n\nA crested gecko looking surprised:\n\n\n\nThe green iguana:\n\n\n\nA black mamba. Watch out!\n\n\n\nFlying snake alert!\n\n\n\nThe draco lizard with its "wings" extended (male) and the draco lizard with its "wings" folded (female):\n\n \n\nA parachute gecko showing how it works:\n\n\n\nShow transcript:\nWelcome to Strange Animals Podcast. I\u2019m your host, Kate Shaw.\nThis week we\u2019re going to learn about some reptiles, specifically reptiles that live in trees. This is a suggestion from Riley, who wanted to hear about arboreal reptiles in general and the crested gecko in particular. Thanks also to my brother Richard, who suggested the dragon-tailed gecko. An anonymous reviewer also suggested the leopard gecko so we\u2019ll learn about that one too. Specifically, the anonymous reviewer said \u201cme and my friend Aiden suggest either red foxes or leopard geckos.\u201d We actually covered the red fox in episode 138, about city animals, and in episode 106, about domestication, but we\u2019ve only mentioned the leopard gecko briefly way back in episode 20.\nArboreal animals have some traits in common, whether they\u2019re reptiles or mammals or something else. In general, an animal that spends most of its time in trees is small and lightweight, either has long legs or very short legs, may have a long tail to help it balance, and may also have various adaptations to its feet to help it maneuver through branches.\nThis is the case with the chameleon, which is arboreal and has weird feet. Its feet look more like mittens. The feet are called zygodactylous, which means it has two toes pointing forward and two pointing backwards. A lot of birds have feet like this too. Chameleons have other adaptations for arboreal life, like prehensile tails that can twine around a twig to help it keep its balance. The chameleon really deserves its own episode some day, so let\u2019s move on to learn about some geckos.\nThe biggest gecko known grows up to two feet long, or 60 cm, but most are much smaller. There are more than 1,800 species known and they\u2019re all really interesting and honestly, adorable. They\u2019re mostly nocturnal and eat small animals like insects. About 60% of all gecko species have toe pads that allow them to walk up walls and windows and even across ceilings.\nLike many other lizards, most geckos species can drop their tail if a predator attacks. The tail thrashes around on its own for several minutes, distracting the predator so the gecko can escape. The gecko later regrows a little stumpy tail, but it can\u2019t drop it a second time. Many species of gecko store fat in the tail, so it needs that tail. A genus of gecko called the fish-scaled gecko, which lives on Madagascar and nearby islands, has big scales that come loose easily if an animal tries to bite it or if a scientist tries to capture it. The predator gets a mouthful of scales while the gecko runs off. The scales grow back eventually and can be lost again.\nScientists are always interested in animals that can regenerate parts of the body, to learn how that works. A study published in 2017 identified the type of cells that allow the gecko to regrow the part of its spinal cord that\u2019s lost with its tail. In 2018, the same team published their discovery that geckos renew brain cells.