Tarentola mauritanica: hibernacula in Granada (Spain)

[Gabriel Martínez]

Hi everybody!

Last weekend I was in Granada. I visited one house of my family in a village close Granada (Andalussia, Spain). The weather at night was about 5º and reptiles activity was very low. Only some Podarcis basking in the middle of the day.

My family´s house is surrounded by another houses. In summer since I was child, every house has a lamp on at night and a Tarentola mauritanica there waiting for moskitos, spiders and another small animals that are attracted by the light. In spring and autumn these geckos are sometimes basking in the first hours of the day but the nocturnal activity is not so high than in summer. And in winter, they dissapear.

Close to my family house there are a "left" bathroom in a independent building close to olive tree fields. Nobody enters there. In spring/summer/autumn is easy to find there 1 or 2 Tarentola mauritanica adults between pictures and the wall. And 3 or 4 years ago I could see many Tarentola specimens in winter there. All of them in "brumation" / "hibernation" / "dormancy" / "torpor" / "sleeping" / in "diapause" (what word do you think is better for the reptiles low activity in winter??).

I was reading information about it. It´s recorded from Balearic Islands groups of this species "hibernating" together in maximum groups of 5 individuals. So yesterday I decided to make a good count and I found 32 individuals there. Under the pictures, the lamps, in the cracks... Very amazing because this nice geckos must use it as "hibernacula". I have read something about viperids, other snakes and some lizards in big groups to hibernate (typical in some Crotalus species for example), but till now I´ve never read something about this in geckos. If somebody know something please tell me!!! If not, enjoy the pictures anyway

Cheers Gabri

Olive tree fields

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The Bathroom-hibernacula

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Example of the picture in the wall. There I found most of the geckos "sleeping"

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Alone

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Back

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2 Individuals

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3 individuals and ¿¿spider?? (when the weather will be warmer I guess they won´t be so friends...

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More...

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More...

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7 individuals together! (in situ, just moving the picture and some of them moving slowly)

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More in cracks

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More under lamps

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Nice animal

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Cute

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This cat must be thinking: where are the Tarentolas?? Thay are safe in the bathroom. This fu**ing cats sometimes kill the geckos just for play...

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[Peter Oefinger]

Gabriel,
I'm not shure if we can speak of hibernacula at Tarentola: To my experience, on cold winter days they hide in cracks but at any warm winter day they are out basking.
Regards
Peter

[Gabriel Martínez]

Hi Peter! I´ve never seen in that village activity in december-january. Probably some coastal populations don´t have a "pure hibernation", although some authors have recorded this species hibernating in Balearic Islands in groups at maximum of 5 individuals (Martínez-Rica, 1974; Salvador, 1978).

The most interesting thing in this bathroom is that in spring-summer-autumn it´s only possible to see 1 or 2 individuals, and only in the coldest months of the year I have seen many of them (this time 32, other years also many of them, I haven´t other numbers because I had never counted them). It´s known that this species is very territorial except in hibernation (Salvador, 2011), so it´s impossible to imagine 7 of them under the same picture or 32 in a bathroom of 5x8meters without hibernation. This chrismas I will try to see if they bask in the warmer days but at the moment I´ve never seen geckos basking there in these months there (I´ve seen them basking in final march-abril during many hours of the morning)

Thanks for your comment!

________
-Martínez-Rica, J. P. (1974). Contribución al estudio de la biología de los gecónidos ibéricos (Rept., Sauria). Publ. Centro Piren. Biol. Exp., 5: 1-291
-Salvador, A. (1978). Materiales para una "Herpetofauna Balearica". 5. Las salamanquesas y tortugas del archipiélago de Cabrera. Doñana, Acta Vert., 5: 5-17.
-Salvador, A. (2011). Salamanquesa común – Tarentola mauritanica. En: Enciclopedia Virtual de los Vertebrados Españoles. Salvador, A., Marco, A. (Eds.). Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales, Madrid. http://www.vertebradosibericos.org/

[Peter Oefinger]

You are right,
maybe there is a difference between coastal and inland populations - perhaps Granada is too cool in winter.
I've seen a group of > 10 individuals of Hemidactylus turcicus "hibernating" in one crevice. I have never seen that species being outside in winter.

Regards
Peter

[Jeroen Speybroeck]

OK, Peter, but Hemi is hardly ever diurnal, right?

I was wondering - would they be able to truely hibernate while glued to the wall?

[Gabriel Martínez]

maybe there is a difference between coastal and inland populations - perhaps Granada is too cool in winter

Last sunday the day was warm and Podarcis lizards were active. I flipped a metalic thing and I saw a tiny juvenile Tarentola mauritanica, so maybe juveniles are actived in warmer days, but I didn´t find adults active or under things out of the bathroom... This village is at 800 masl and is cooler than coastal areas but warmer than another places of 2500masl of Sierra Nevada where this gecko has been recorded and for sure must have "hibernation".

I don´t know the hibernation grades. Probably in Granada it´s not as hard as the hibernation of Vipera berus in Finland. But these 32 geckos:
- move into bathroom ONLY in cold months.
- although last sunday was "warm day" (to be december) all of them was quiet and hidden, not basking.
- when I flipped the pictures or lamps they were quiet or moved very very slowly.
- one of the photos show 3 of these geckos with a spider. If they haven´t totally stopped the metabolism I think it´s impossible
- they are very territorial, then how can be 7 individuals together in 1x1meter or less. And 32 in 5x8m?

So I´m sure it´s something like a "hibernation/brumation": don´t eat, don´t bask, don´t move... just waiting the first days of february or march to go out and bask. It could be only a reduction of the activity? Maybe, but why to go to the bathroom all of them. If it´s a simply reduction of activity, maybe it could be better to be hidden close to their territory...

would they be able to truely hibernate while glued to the wall?

It´s not totally true. Because with the pictures, lamps or cracks they are between this thing and the wall. ANd sometimes the fingers havent´all the pressure of the animal. And although it doesn´t seem confortable, these geckos are very adapted to the vertical life. Even in a spanish forum, people was amazing because a person found a Tarentola mauritanica dead in a wall and it didn´t fall. The finger´s adhesives are so hard than they can be glued even when die!!!

Maybe it could be interesting to mark the individuals. And try to capture them in august to know the distance between "winter refuge" and territory. And next winter I could see if the same individuals return to the refuge again. It could be a good experiment... I sent an email to Alfredo Salvador. I will wait the response and maybe I will begin with it...

[Pierre-Yves Vaucher]

Very interesting Gabri, I think for salamander wich hibernate together in the same cave.

[Peter Oefinger]

OK, Peter, but Hemi is hardly ever diurnal, right?

I was wondering - would they be able to truely hibernate while glued to the wall?

Jeroen: the difference is that tarentola is also out in warm winter nights and Hemi is not.

[Peter Oefinger]

Here are some winter Tarentolas of the Alicante area (27.12.2011, 11:30 a.m., 15 °C, alt: 300 m)

Regards
Peter

[Gabriel Martínez]

Here are some winter Tarentolas of the Alicante area

Very interesting Peter! I was in the "hibernacula/sleeping place" 2 days last week and all the Tarentolas were under pictures. No activity... neither during the middle of the day (13-15h) when the weather was warmer and the Podarcis were actived... (alt: 800m)