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TEAM TALK
The Cutting Edge By Mariette
A LITTLE GIANT WITH A BiiiiG ATTITUDE
“ Racky”, a New Caledonian Giant Gecko( Rhacodactylus leachianus) a little giant, with a big attitude joined the Snake Park at Bayworld in October 1992 as a 15 month old gecko, already measuring in at a whopping 380mm in length.
New Caledonian Giant Geckos, the largest geckos in the world, occur in the tropical rainforests of the island of New Caledonia. They favour the humid environment. They are grey in colour and are well camouflaged where they spend their lives under the bark and forks of tall trees. They have even been observed to climb heights of up to 40 meters! Feeding mainly on fruit and insects, incidents of predation on small birds, has been reported.
With his large beady eyes and giant gecko physique, Racky is housed in an enclosure off display and behind-the-scenes at this point in time. As he was previously on display, he delighted visitors with his antics. Being a nocturnal species, he is very active at night, making sure he gets his beauty sleep during the day. Whilst on display, his day and night switches had to be adapted in order for visitors to get a glimpse of this little giant. He loved stalking visitors( they usually didn’ t see him in his enclosure with the night light as he blended in very well with his habitat), whereupon he would jump at the glass, giving the visitors a huge fright and reminding them of how sneaky he could actually be! Nobody expected this large gecko to lunge towards them whilst peeking through the glass trying to spot him!
This little giant has a very sweet tooth. He enjoys a varied- and balanced diet which consists of small mice, crickets, roaches, mashed fresh fruit and his all time favourite which is baby food( off course he has his firm favourites which includes the Four Fruits and Fruit Salad flavours). As his human mother, I get to purchase baby food for him, much to the delight of the cashiers at the shop who can’ t believe that this is not for an actual baby, but rather a giant gecko!
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