A highly sensitive and special species — Written by Te Korowai o Waiheke Team Member
It has been another long summer day. The stones in the back garden have been warmed, and are now shaded by the slowly sinking sun. A tentative tail of an ornate skink flickers between the gaps, is it safe to come out? She pokes her rounded nose out from the safety of the leaf litter, the air is still and dense.
The world seems unmoving around her, just how she likes it. She scampers up onto the rock. While invisible in the leaf litter, her brown scales stand out against the dry stones. Two dark tear-drop scales frame her amber-coloured eyes, the gentle thump of her breathing visible just behind her elbows. The warmth seeps into her cool blood as she stretches out to bask.
While Waiheke is home to a number of well known and visible taonga species, there are a few that fly under the radar and prefer to ‘blend in’. Geckos and skinks, or mokomoko in te reo Māori, can be found all over Waiheke. It is important to note that our mokomoko are protected, this means that you cannot touch, collect or disturb any of our native lizards. They are highly sensitive species, best enjoyed with your eyes only. If your backyard is overgrown with native plants, piles of leaf litter, and rocks, chances are there might be some extra special inhabitants hanging around too.
There is movement in an overhanging kanuka branch. The lumbering grey body of a forest gecko slides through the tufts of leaves, his skin mottled with waves of bronze and bright yellow spots akin to that of tree lichen. Against the branch of an old pohutukawa, he would be invisible, but in the green of the canopy, his scales catch the rising moonlight. An orange tongue creeps from the corner of his mouth, slapping over each unblinking eye. Dinner flickers by in the form of an unsuspecting moth. Steadying each scraggly toe around a different stem, he plucks the tiny insect from the air with ease, chewing like he’s eaten a mouthful of dry weetbix. He licks his eyes again, you have to do this a lot when you don’t have any eyelids. A leaf falls from the branch onto the rocks below, and the skink scarpers off into the leaf litter again."
— Written by Te Korowai o Waiheke Team Member, Charlie Thomas.
— Photos by Samuel Purdie
