She was in a hurry to get undressed ;)

DragnDrop · 05-09-05, 08:50 PM

A few days ago I found a big blob of skin in one of the crested gecko enclosures. It wasn't the normal looking left-over bit of shed, but a wad of skin which I couldn't resist checking out. I soaked it in lukewarm water for a while and then started to unravel it with the blunt end of a toothpick. This is what I ended up with:

If you have good eyes, you can see the pattern made by the crests along the spine.

It's normal for snakes to shed all in one piece, but I've never seen an almost complete 'one piece' gecko shed like this one. It's from one of my female crested geckos. Since the gecko 'peels' the skin off, it's inside out. The other leg and foot were there when I started to unravel it, but I accidentally ripped them off. I tried to get the toe and tail tips out too, but it's too fragile and tricky. Too bad I couldn't at least get the tail to the adhesive pad, it would have been great to see the pattern in the skin.

Close-up of scale pattern in one of the feet from the 'full body' crested gecko shed.

Jeff_Favelle · 05-09-05, 09:11 PM

That's an awesome shed!! I thought they shed in pieces like other geckos? COOL!!

Simon · 05-09-05, 09:29 PM

Wow~
Interesting~
I thought that they shed in pieces too..and I thought that they eat their shed....??!?!?
That is very interesting~~
haha
Thanks for sharing!

DragnDrop · 05-09-05, 09:50 PM

This is an unusual shed for a gecko. You're both right, normally they shed in pieces, eat most or all of it. Like I said, I've never before seen this kind of shed in any gecko or lizard. Sometimes they won't eat their shed (and who can blame them? ewww), but just walking out of the skin like a snake is really different.

SnakeyeZ · 05-09-05, 10:00 PM

Too cool, ive seen that on my leo once, kept it for a bit in a clear casing. Neat photo's!

Lrptls · 05-09-05, 10:14 PM

thats really awesome. you know what else sheds just about in one piece? alot of amphibians. both my pacman frog and tiger salamander shed in one piece but its comes off in the water as a big brown gooy glob, kinda gross.

StickyToes · 05-10-05, 12:31 AM

That really rocks Hilde!

The most I've ever found was the head and back of one of my phantasticus. It had creepy little horns over the eyes!
Tres cool!

DragnDrop · 05-10-05, 06:23 PM

I'd love to see that Phant shed!! You didn't happen to take pictures, did you?

thunder · 05-10-05, 06:55 PM

i once managed to salvage a nearly complete salamander shed. i laminated it. its really cool!

babysweet · 05-11-05, 08:26 PM

WOW Hilde, very cool!

We recently got a whole skin from our ball python... it was great because we could finally get an idea of how long she is. It's hard to measure a snake because as soon as you try to strech her straight, their reaction is always to curl up.

But I gotta say... your gecko skin kicks my snake skin's butt!

That's a great view of the toes... what kind of camera are you using?

Kim

DragnDrop · 05-12-05, 08:17 AM

Snake skin stretches during the shed so you can't really get an accurate idea of how long he is by measuring it. There's a neat program called 'snake measurer which works pretty well but you need a picture of the snake on a flat surface to use it.

The camera I used for these pictures is my newer one, Olympus C740 Ultra Zoom, 10X optical, 3X digital zoom, 3.3 (or is it 3.2?) MP.

galad · 05-12-05, 11:44 AM

awsome pics hilde!
Reminds me of a show on discovery channel I watched not to long ago.
A scientist is trying to figure out how a gecko can climb up virtualy any surface. And how it can run along the ceiling as easily as it could run along the floor.
So he then took a peice of skin from the foot of a tokay gecko and attached it onto a thin stick. He was actually able to lift up a penny with the peice of skin. Very cool.
He also placed the peice of skin under a high powered micro-scope to get a close up look of the skin. What he found was the bottom of the foot was made up of millions of tiny hairs.
Eachone of these hairs absolutly tiny. When he magnified further he found that each hair had a major case of split ends.

So what he came up with was a theory that the tiny split ends of the hairs were so small that they are actually able to join with whatever surface the gecko was walking on in a millecular manor.

Meaning that the foot actually became one with whatever surface they happen to be climbing on.
He is now in the process of inventing gecko gloves. Which will allow humans the same climbing capability of the gecko.

I cannot wait to get me a pair of those! lol
Probably wont be out for anouther 5 to 10 years though
lmfao

peace

ws

galad · 05-12-05, 11:47 AM

awsome pics hilde!
Reminds me of a show on discovery channel I watched not to long ago.
A scientist is trying to figure out how a gecko can climb up virtualy any surface. And how it can run along the ceiling as easily as it could run along the floor.
So he took a peice of skin from the foot of a tokay gecko and attached it onto a thin stick. He was actually able to lift up a penny with the peice of skin. Very cool.
He also placed the peice of skin under a high powered microscope to get a close up look of the skin. What he found was the bottom of the foot was made up of millions of tiny hairs.
When he magnified further he found that each hair had a major case of split ends.

So what he came up with was a theory that the tiny split ends of the hairs were so small that they are actually able to join with whatever surface the gecko was walking on, on a millecular level.
Meaning that the foot actually became one with whatever surface they happen to be climbing on.
He is now in the process of inventing gecko gloves. Which will allow humans the same climbing capability of the gecko.

I cannot wait to get me a pair of those! lol
Probably wont be out for anouther 5 to 10 years though
lmfao

peace

ws