Long-lived gecko named after Nelson ecologist
Retired Nelson ecologist, Bruce Thomas knew in his 20s that New Zealand geckos could live for at least 16 years, after having one that lived that long as a pet.
But it was “really exciting” that two geckos in their 60s – thought to be the oldest geckos in the world had been found – from an island population of an at-risk species he helped date.
It was also a “great honour” to have one of them named after him (in a “light-hearted” fashion), the 77-year-old said.
The pair of Waitaha geckos, estimated to be over 64 and 60 years old, were found on Motunau Island off the Canterbury coast last month, during a five-yearly species monitoring visit, the Department of Conservation said.
Herpetologists in New Zealand said they didn’t know of any other species of gecko living so long – with the average lifespan for gecko around the world being a decade.
The geckos, both females, were able to be dated because they were among over 100 of the lizards individually marked on the island in the 1960s, under a study initiated by the late herpetologist Tony Whitaker.
Researchers, who worked with Whitaker before he died in 2014, named one of the newly-discovered lizards “Antoinette”, in his honour, and the other “Brucie-Baby” – Whitaker’s nickname for Thomas, who carried out some of the later gecko marking work.
Whitaker and Thomas started working together in their 20s at the Crown institute that later became Landcare Research, and moved to Nelson when a branch opened in the city in the 1970s.
Whitaker and fellow colleague, Rowley Taylor, became like family to Thomas, he said.
They forged ahead with studying geckos, despite it being a less respected and funded field than research into other endemic animals like native birds, Thomas said.
Discovering that geckos could live to over 60 – and the fact that now made headlines – validated their efforts, he said.
“It’s because of the sort of work we were doing … we stepped outside the mark and we kept grabbing opportunities to do things that we were interested in.
“We had to scrabble and scrounge and beg.”
Many more people were “out there batting for things like lizards” now, Thomas said.
Research had seen New Zealand’s “very unique” lizard species quadruple since he started working, with the country known to have more of them than endemic bird species, he said.
“When I started … there were something like 29 species [of lizards] recognised in New Zealand.
“It’s up to 128 species now.”
Thomas was fascinated by animals including geckos from a young age, but there were “very few people in the country that were into lizards” at that time, he said.
As a teenager, he started corresponding with fellow enthusiast Whitaker, three years his senior.
By the time Thomas started working alongside him, Whitaker had already made two or three trips to Motunau Island, marking the geckos through a toe-clipping method, no longer used.
Thomas then stepped in, helping with that work.
Thomas went on to classify a new species – the Harlequin gecko, discovered by Taylor on Stewart Island – before pursuing ground-breaking work in rat eradication.
Gecko numbers had plunged on the mainland due to introduced predators and habitat loss.
Discovering that two Waitaha geckos were still alive on Motunau Island six decades after he helped date the population, and as many animal species died off, showed the importance of looking after New Zealand’s unique species, Thomas said.
And that passion could pay off, said Thomas, who started working straight after school.
“No one would have thought these guys would have got up to the ages that these two girls now have reached.
“They were probably both adults when they were marked.
“And we don’t know how long they’re going to live.”
By Warren Gamble, Nelson Mail
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