The Northland green gecko, Naultinus grayii, is a gecko found only in the Northland region of New Zealand, north of Whangaroa. Its total length is up to 200 mm, snout to vent up to 95 mm.
The Northland green gecko is vivid green with grey or gold coloured markings on either side along the dorsal edges. Males have a blue band along the sides just below the limbs. Underneath, the surface of both sexes is bright pale green, sometimes with a yellow tinge. The inside of the mouth is deep blue with a bright red tongue.
The Northland green gecko is diurnal, often found sun-basking. It has an arboreal lifestyle, especially favouring stands of manuka, kanuka, and mingimingi.
In 2001 a German tourist was fined $12,000 for attempting to smuggle Northland green geckos out of the country in his underwear.
Famous quotes containing the word green:
“But we still remember ... above all, the cool, free aspect of the wild apple trees, generously proffering their fruit to us, though still green and crude,—the hard, round, glossy fruit, which, if not ripe, still was not poison, but New English too, brought hither, its ancestors, by ours once. These gentler trees imparted a half-civilized and twilight aspect to the otherwise barbarian land.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)