The varied foraging mode of the subtropical eublepharid gecko Goniurosaurus kuroiwae orientalis

Abstract

Insectivorous lizards usually employ one of two foraging modes, ambush ‘sit-and-wait’ or active ‘widely foraging’, but in the Gekkonomorpha the situation has been unclear. Therefore we quantified the foraging mode of the eublepharid gecko Goniurosaurus kuroiwae orientalis on Tokashikijima near Okinawajima, Japan, in September 1999. The taxon is rare, endangered and protected. On the selected semi-urban study site the gecko was confirmed as a nocturnal cursorial gecko, which also ascends trees up to 1.8 m. Foraging regimes of marked individuals, during repeated 30-min observation periods, could vary from immobility throughout, to active locomotion 84% of the time. Foraging mode was not significantly affected by sex, body length, mass or state of tail regeneration of the individuals, or by the timing of the observation. In males, at higher temperatures single moves became longer, while time allocated to moving was stable. In both sexes longer observation bouts included longer sitting pauses, which, given stable move duration, reduced the share of time spent moving and the moves per minute. Goniurosaurus kuroiwae orientalis averaged moving during 23% of the time, moving 0.39 times per minute, the moves lasting 77 s and the pauses lasting 745 s. Compared to other geckos, G. k. orientalis may be defined as a widely foraging animal, despite its mixed behaviour. This result supports the definition of the Eublepharidae as widely foraging and is compatible with two hypotheses, that early Gekkonomorpha were widely foraging or that they had an intermediate, undefined, foraging mode.