“Scattered beneath salt bushes, caught in hollows and strewn across the red dirt are a random assortment of discarded objects. A beer bottle, a piece of wire, plastic of all types and this mysterious iron capping.

The material world has found its way into deserts, mountain tops and ice cores.

However, this particular piece of throw-away refuse has been claimed.

It is now a doorway into another life, a cool cavern, moisture wicking and a barrier for predators. When I lifted the metal sheet, the two tessellated geckos froze at the sudden exposure to light and potential danger. All three of us had a moment of genuine surprise.

As I placed the metal sheet back I noticed the path dug to the cracked earth, a door, an entrance way, the perfect home – out here geckos make the best of a situation.”

— Philomena Manifold

Did you know: if you are in nature, either in a national park or your neighbourhood and you spot a creature, you can share your experience with Australia’s biology, ecology and environmental science community to help their research?

Register your sighting today, with the Atlas of Living Australia via this website and help scientists care for our environment:

Meet Diplodactylus tessellatus, the Tessellated Gecko!

AuScope peers at the Atlas of Living Australia have this to say about these camouflage queens of the desert: ‘Australian diplodactyline geckos are the only extant [surviving] squamate [largest order of reptiles, comprising lizards, snakes, and amphisbaenians (worm lizards)] group thought to have been in Australia before its separation from other east Gondwanan landmasses.

D. tessellatus is thought to have speciated [develop into a new and distinct species in the course of evolution] from Diplodactylus vittatus between 12–20 million years ago during the Miocene Epoch of the Neogene period.’