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21 August, 2011

Cannibals Amongst Us

Last night, while I was watching a scifi movie, 'Alien Raiders', about  gun-brandishing characters who take over over a supermarket grocery store in Buck Lake, a small Arizona town.

Instead of going for the green, as you might think, somehow they know the 'king' (or is it the queen?) of the aliens is in the the supermarket hiding in infected employees and customers. They seem to have initially found the aliens when they all worked together as scientists at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in California, from which they left to get guns and chase and destroy the aliens.

Apparently, some of their group can sense when people are inhabited by the aliens, so they spend time in the grocery “clearing” people or shooting those who fail the clearance test.

Well, enough about aliens. We've more important fish to fry, as it were.

I'd heard since we moved down here that geckos, those cute little critters that live with us in our houses and apartments down here in the tropics, are also cannibals.
The Guilty One
 "Nuh-uh," I thought. They're too cute to do something like that. Guess again. My eyeballs have first hand experience witnessing the savage act in progress.

We frequently have tiny little gecko - pups? Geckettes? Nah, they're called 'Geppys'. So, we have these tiny little geppys running around the place. I guess they're in charge of eating the really small bugs.

Such was the case last night. We'd had one of these geppys showing up on the back of the couch or on the wall or windowsill of the living room for a couple of days and didn't think anything of it. It's a common enough occurrence.

Well, as I was engrossed in watching 'Alien Raiders', I happened to see the geppy running around on the wall behind the TV several times as the movie progressed. Then I happened to see a rather rotund adult gecko (I suppose it could be pregnant female) also on the wall and this one began chasing the little one.

After a few minutes, down in the corner of the wall by the front door, the little one had gotten cornered. Just like that, the big gecko grabbed the little one in its mouth and a couple seconds later, the little geppy was no geppy no more.

I was shocked and surprised. Not enough that I stopped watching 'Alien Raiders' you understand, but shocked and surprised nonetheless.

After the movie reached its somewhat climactic end - I'm not going to spoil the ending for you, other than to say, think sequel, I went to bed. I probably should have slept fitfully all night, what with all that in the movie and what I witnessed and having just survived Tropical Storm Harvey. But, no. I fell asleep quickly and slept quite well. I wasn't bothered by alien body invaders or cannibals in my dreams.

I did think I should alert you to the fact that just because they're meek and mild and so cute appearing, doesn't mean meek and mild in action. Still, cute maybe.

It might be that they just resent being called 'geppys' when young. Who knows?

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Dave, two cats (sorry to hear of their demise) and you think cute and cuddly don't eat "stuff"!!!! Glad to hear you are doing fine and weathering the storms. joan sterling

Dave Rider said...

Hi Joan,

Long time no see. Hope you're doing well. Cats being cute and cuddly I know is just an act. They eat spiders and other bugs, mice and whatever other critters they can find. Then they come up and purr and all is forgiven.
Geckos are sort of the same way. They're just so little and cute with big eyes and sort of delicate looking, you just don't think of them chomping on their fellow geckos - our housemates down here. I'm surprised they don't try to chew on us when we're sleeping... Oh. Maybe they do. Hmmmm.

Cheers,
Dave