News Animals

How a western banded gecko eats a scorpion

The lizards shake and incapacitate their venomous prey

a western banded gecko perched on a branch

Western banded geckos (one shown) aren’t known as fearsome predators or sprinters, but these lizards shake scorpions at high speeds for a meal.

SDSU Clark Lab

By Helen Thompson

Western banded geckos don’t look like they’d win in a fight. Yet this unassuming predator dines on venomous scorpions, and a field study published in the March Biological Journal of the Linnean Society shows how the lizards take down such perilous prey.