Wildlife in West Virginia - Types of West Virginian Animals

Van Gogh Gecko: Eye-Catching Lizard Named For 'Starry Night' Resemblance

Scientists think a newly discovered gecko gives off a "Starry Night" vibe.

Art Images via Getty Images

When scientists spotted a strikingly colored gecko scampering around the forests of southern India, a world-famous painting came to mind: "The Starry Night." So they gave the lizard a name that honors the artwork's creator, Vincent Van Gogh.

Say hello to a new species of gecko, Cnemaspis vangoghi. With its yellow-gold forebody and light blue spots and lines bedecking its back and head, the male has coloring reminiscent of the vivid multicolored swirls in the Dutch painter's 1889 oil on canvas.

The gecko-naming scientists, from Indian conservation nonprofit Thackeray Wildlife Foundation, describe the newly discovered lizard in a new study published in the journal ZooKeys and suggest Van Gogh starry gecko as its common name. They also detail a second species of gecko, Cnemaspis sathuragiriensis, named for its home in the Sathuragiri Hills.

Due to its famed namesake, it is, not surprisingly, Vincent Van Gecko that will likely grab more attention of the two reptiles. Mumbai artist and marine biologist Gaurav Patil couldn't resist drawing a gecko that serves as a canvas for "The Starry Night" and posting it on Instagram, and the Thackeray Wildlife Foundation shared a whimsical illustration of Van Gogh himself drawing a gecko.

A top contender for "world's artsiest lizard" title.

Akshay Khandekar

A lizard Vincent Van Gogh could have painted.

Akshay Khandekar

"The Starry Night," now housed in New York's Museum of Modern Art, captures the view from the east-facing window of Van Gogh's asylum room in the French town of Saint-Rémy-de-Provenc just before sunrise. The artist, who struggled with mental illness, painted the artwork during a highly productive period the year before he died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound at age 37.

The little Van Gogh gecko the painting evokes can grow to be about 1.5 inches long. Both newly described gecko species are active during the day, mainly on rocks and tree trunks during the cool hours of the early morning and evening. So far, they have only been found in restricted localities, in this case in low-elevation, deciduous forests in the state of Tamil Nadu.

The state is "exceptionally biodiverse," Ishan Agarwal, one of the scientists, noted in a statement. By the time the team has finished its expeditions, "we expect to name well over 50 new species of lizards," he added.

ForbesInteractive AI-Powered Van Gogh Wants To Talk With You About Life, And DeathBy Leslie Katz

Van Gogh, who marked a birthday on Saturday, March 30, has been having even more of a cultural moment than usual.

The traveling multimedia exhibit Immersive van Gogh continues to steep visitors in 65 million pixels of the artist's works through digital projection, animation, light and music. And an interactive AI-powered Van Gogh at the Musée D'Orsay in Paris recently answered questions posed by visitors. They asked him about life, death and art, but not how he'd feel about sharing his name with a gecko.

Artists are having fun with the idea that a gecko looks like a Vincent Van Gogh painting.

Thackeray Wildlife Foundation/Instagram

Watch A Gecko Take Down A Scorpion In This Breathtaking Slow-mo Video

Researchers with San Diego State University (SDSU) in California have shared a spectacular video of western banded geckos fighting scorpions. These geckos are normally thought of as fairly mild-mannered creatures. But, as you can see in the video shared by the SDSU, they can put out quite a thrashing when they need to.

Check out this video of western banded geckos fighting scorpions The video is part of a study focused on the unique feed behaviors of the western banded gecko, particularly when consuming scorpions. These geckos prey on small arthropods like crickets and beetles. However, scorpions are also part of their menu, it seems. And, when they feed on these dangerous creatures, the geckos get pretty feisty. Instead of pouncing and attacking the scorpions like they would other creatures, the geckos actually writhe around violently after grabbing the scorpion. It's an interesting sight to behold, and one that we're not sure to forget anytime soon. You can see the video for yourself above. It is very reminiscent of how some predators capture their prey and then violently shake them to incapacitate them. Tech. Entertainment. Science. Your inbox. Sign up for the most interesting tech & entertainment news out there. By signing up, I agree to the Terms of Use and have reviewed the Privacy Notice. Incapacitating its prey A western banded gecko stalking along the ground. Image source: Viktor / Adobe The researchers believe that the western banded geckos fight the scorpions this way to render them unable to fight back. They shared their research on the way western banded geckos fight scorpions in the Biological Journal of the Linnean Society. SDSU biologists Rulon Clark and Malachi Whitford, graduate students from the SDSU and the University of California joint Davis Ph.D. Program, conducted the study. Clark says he first noticed the western banded gecko's unique behavior when studying flat-tailed horned lizards in the 1990s. (via Newsweek) After a few years, he returned to commence another study. During that time, though, he and Whitford managed to film western banded geckos fighting scorpions and other prey. They were then able to dig deeper into the gecko's natural behavior by studying the video. Most of us can probably look at geckos without being intimidated. After all, they aren't scary creatures. Some companies, like Geico, have even gone on to use them as brand images. But, after seeing the way that these western banded geckos go toe-to-toe with scorpions, there definitely seems to be more to these little creatures than first meets the eye. If nothing else, this is just another reminder of how intriguing nature and the wild creatures that we share this planet with can be.

Scaly Creature — With Yellow Eyelids — Found Lurking In Forest. It's A New Species

On a hot and humid night in Vietnam, a scaly creature perched on a rock in the middle of a forest. The animal had yellow eyelids and a mosaic-like pattern.

It turned out to be a new species.

Scientists visited the forests of Binh Dinh Province several times between 2016 and 2022 to survey the area's reptiles, according to a study published April 29 in the peer-reviewed journal Zootaxa.

During their visits, researchers found six geckos with yellow eyelids, the study said. At first, they thought the lizards were a new population of a known species, but when they took a closer look, they realized they'd discovered a new species: Cyrtodactylus binhdinhensis, or the Binh Dinh bent-toed gecko.

Binh Dinh bent-toed geckos are considered "medium"-sized, reaching up to 6.2 inches in length, the study said. They have "slender" limbs, yellow eyelids and a "neckband" around their throats.

A Cyrtodactylus binhdinhensis, or Binh Dinh bent-toed gecko, perched on a leaf.

Discover more new species

Thousands of new species are found each year. Here are three of our most eye-catching stories from the past week.

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A photo shows the brown mosaic-like coloring of a Binh Dinh bent-toed gecko. Its eyes are almost greenish-yellow with some bright yellow scales around the top. The rest of its body is a mixture of dark brown blotches on a light tan-brown background.

Binh Dinh bent-toed geckos were found lurking on rocks near a small forest stream at night, the study said.

Researchers said they named the new species after Binh Dinh Province because it was discovered there and, so far, has only been found there. This province borders the South China Sea and is about 300 miles northeast of Ho Chi Minh City.

The new species was identified by its size, scale pattern, coloring, DNA and other subtle physical features, the study said.

The research team included Hanh Thi Ngo, Quyen Hanh Do, Dang Trong Do, Cuong The Pham, Thanh Phuong Thi Bui, Anh Thi Ngoc Ho, Truong Quang Nguyen, Thomas Ziegler and Minh Duc Le.

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