Geckos galore!

The picture above is of a mutant two-tailed gecko in our storage closet. There are a LOT geckos in Hawaii and many look just like that one, although the typical (non-mutant) gecko only owns one tail. They come in a variety of colors and sizes and make a strange clicking/knocking noise to communicate, especially at night. These friendly (if rather skittish) creatures supposedly eat bugs, so we always try to put them back outside (away from the stalking eyes of the cat!) if they make their way into the house. Unfortunately, they are also very attracted the bug zapper we put up out back in hopes of curtailing our mosquito problem. Instead of zapped mosquitoes, our zapper still holds the remnants of three zapped geckos. When I say that geckos are very prolific here, it's not an exaggeration. For example, after the tsunami hit last month, there was a news report on the effectiveness of the siren warning system. Most of the sirens went off without a problem, but a handful remained silent because they had been "shorted out by geckos"!