MOVEMENT PATTERNS AND SOCIALITY OF THE MEDITERRANEAN GECKO, HEMIDACTYLUS TURCICUS, IN SOUTHWESTERN LOUISIANA

The Mediterranean gecko, Hemidactylus turcicus, is a nonnative lizard that lives on buildings and other artificial structures in the southern United States. Previous studies have shown that geckos rarely move from one building to another and that, when they do, it is usually due to juveniles dispersing to new buildings. Little is known about the movements of geckos on the buildings they occupy or about the degree to which males and females or adults and juveniles associate with each other during their nocturnal activity periods. We used data from a multi-year, mark-recapture study of a population of Mediterranean geckos on a one-story building in southwestern Louisiana to analyze movements of geckos between recaptures and to analyze age and sex of pairs of geckos. The distance moved by adult geckos between recaptures was usually small (< 5 m) regardless of whether the time between recaptures was < 30 days, >30 days within a year, or in succeeding years. There was no difference in patterns of movement between adult males and adult females. Occasionally, adult geckos did make long-distance movements of >= 18 m, but these were often followed by movements back to their starting point. Juvenile geckos generally moved greater distances between recaptures than did adults, perhaps as a means of dispersal to a new area on the building. Juvenile geckos were associated with adult geckos in pairs less frequently than expected whereas the number of same-sex and different-sex pairs of adults did not differ from expectations if males and females associated randomly. Overall, the results present a picture of juveniles moving long distances, perhaps to escape contacts with adults, but typically remaining in their home areas for months or years once they become adults.