Jesse Romberg and his girlfriend recently went on a guided hike through Madagascar’s Andasibe National Park. As they made their way through the rainforest, they came across many of the island’s unique species — but one stood out to them above the rest.
The guide led Romberg and his girlfriend to a tree and told them there was an extremely well-camouflaged gecko hiding in plain sight on the bark. The couple stared at the tree, examining it from every possible angle. But no matter how hard they tried, they could not find the lizard.
Jesse Romberg
“I was staring at this tree for, I’m not even kidding, five minutes,” Romberg told The Dodo. “And I was like, ‘What are you talking about? There’s nothing here. What do you mean?’”
Finally, Romberg and his girlfriend had to give up, so the guide pointed out the lizard’s eye and mouth, which were the only parts of the animal that didn’t blend in completely.
“There is no differentiation between the parts of the body and the tree,” Romberg said.
Jesse Romberg
The lizard Romberg saw is called a leaf-tailed gecko. They’re endemic to Madagascar, and their diet consists of insects and other invertebrates. Of course, what they’re most known for is their ability to blend in with their environments.
Leaf-tailed geckos’ camouflaging abilities help them both hide from their predators as well as sneak up on their prey. The pattern on their skin resembles moss-covered bark, and they are able to slightly alter their coloring in response to their surroundings. They also have special flaps on their bodies that they flatten against trees to make them blend in even more.
Jesse Romberg
“Fringed flaps on their lower jaws and the sides of their bodies flatten against a surface, obscuring their outline,” Smithsonian’s National Zoo & Conservation Biology Institute wrote on their website. “The increased surface area reflects and refracts light, breaking the line between the perimeter of their body and the surface beneath them.”
Earlier that day, Romberg and his girlfriend had seen another leaf-tailed gecko on a different tree. While that gecko’s camouflage had blown them away, nothing compared to the second lizard they saw.
Jesse Romberg
“It’s literally unbelievable,” Romberg said.
Romberg feels lucky that with the help of the guide, he got to see one of the world’s stealthiest animals. If not for the expert’s help, the couple would have certainly just walked right past the leaf-tailed gecko.
“It’s one of the craziest things I’ve ever seen in nature,” Romberg said.
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