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Summer 2003

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Lizard Man
By Holly Stratts

Dr. Aaron Bauer's expertise with geckos tapped by the cable channel "Animal Planet."

Location: The island of New Caledonia and many small outer islands, an overseas territory of France, is approximately 900 miles east of Australia in the South Pacific Ocean. Its size is slightly smaller than New Jersey.

Purpose: Hunt the giant geckos that dwell in the canopy of the island's rainforests.

The scene was set for a routine research expedition with one small exception-the presence of a television crew set up to tape an episode of "O'Shea's Big Adventure" show on the Animal Planet channel. The channel, on its web site, describes the show as follows: "Animal Planet showcases the highs and lows, and hopes and fears, of an incredible expedition, intimately captured on camera. In each episode, Mark O'Shea, an internationally renowned herpetologist, teams up with a fellow expert and adventurer on their own home turf, going face-to-fang with snakes, crocodiles, rare primates and 'prehistoric' reptiles. Mark travels the globe seeking the most unusual, dangerous and bizarre reptiles with each program focusing on a different country and a primary creature."

Dr. Aaron Bauer, professor of biology, was invited to participate as a world renowned expert on geckos, as O'Shea stated in the show's opening. After many research expeditions to New Caledonia, Bauer is familiar with the lay of the land and the relative location of the elusive giant geckos.

Geckos range in length from slightly less than one inch to almost a foot - nearly two feet if the tail is included. In this episode, "Devil in the Trees," O'Shea and Bauer searched for giant geckos that grow upwards of a foot and are feared by island natives. These giants are the source of a bit of local folklore. Bauer noted, "In more traditional villages where old beliefs are still held, older people especially will avoid the giant geckos. If they see them at night crossing a road, for example, they may well avoid going out in the evening for a few days." Giant geckos are only found in this part of the world.

Althoug he has many offers to do television shows, this was his first experience. "I am contacted probably once every two weeks by television shows that are involved in projects on geckos or reptiles in general in parts of the world where I work most often, either the South Pacific or southern Africa. They sometimes suggest concepts or topics and the discussion begins from there. And these discussions lasted for weeks. Finally they asked if I would be willing to come to New Caledonia to do the show."

"I learned all the lingo. Mark O'Shea is the hero and in each episode he has a 'buddy' who is the local expert on the species he is seeking. So I was the buddy for this group. The tickets arrived in the mail and I was off to New Caledonia for a week with the producer and the director working out the logistics and then O'Shea and the film crew arrived the next week and we spent two weeks filming."

Bauer continued, "The interesting thing is the impression they want to give is that all the action happens in a two- to three-day period. This is kind of inconvenient because it means that for visual continuity in filming, after you have spent all day slogging around in the tropics they tell you, by the way, you have to wear the same clothes tomorrow because we want it to appear as if it all takes place in the same day. If I forgot to shave, I couldn't shave the next day to keep the same appearance. We spent three weeks doing that."

Pursuing the canopy dwellers

The behind-the-scenes action was fast and furious and non-stop. Bauer's capture expertise played an important part. "Over the years I've learned the way to capture geckos. O'Shea will climb anything. Whether there is a chance to get an animal or not, I think he just like scampering up trees. His method actually worked on two occasions. I told the production people that I could find these animals but the majority of them will be 90, 100 or 120 feet up in the canopy and it's not really possible to get them. We were really dependent for the filming to use animals much lower in the canopy. Although for the show it looked like we only managed to catch a few, we actually saw many geckos and collected a reasonable number. The standard for the show is that if they don't have the cameras rolling when you find something they won't film it. They want to film the discovery of the animal whereas on some other animal show someone goes out earlier in the day, finds and collects the animal and maybe release them around the corner and they are 'discovered on camera.' For this show the policy is that if the cameras aren't rolling when it's found, they won't use it. It cuts down the number of animal captures but it does capture the excitement of the find."

"We filmed for two weeks on a very tight schedule. It was frustrating as a researcher. I didn't realize, having never participated on a show before, how much time I spent helping them set up their shots and finding animals for them. There were some very interesting things though. They rented a helicopter and we flew over island for a whole day. It gave me a new perspective on the place where I worked for 15 years but never had the opportunity to see it from that vantage point. During this trip I didn't get much research accomplished but had some new and interesting insights."

The gecko is familiar, to many anyway

This humble little reptile has been chosen as the "spokeslizard" for a national

auto insurance company whose ads flash across television screens daily. The British-accented small green gecko is actually similar to the green Madagascar gecko according to Bauer. It is a comfort to know that there is still some truth in advertising, except for its ability to speak. But Bauer noted, "Geckos have the most complex vocal anatomy, but some other lizards also vocalize. Most, but not all geckos vocalize." And certainly not with British accents as geckos are found in mainly tropical and some sub-tropical regions throughout the world.

But do they make good pets? "I have a black thumb for keeping live things, but leopard geckos are very popular pets. There are at least hundreds of thousands of them in this country. They are easy to care for, relatively clean and quite attractive. However, like most lizards they don't really like to be handled too much. All in all, they are probably a pretty good pet for those who don't need much affection in return!"

A little gecko history

"The oldest gecko fossils are about the same age as the archaeopteryx, the first bird, and have been on earth for more than 100 million years. It appears that the group probably evolved in the southern hemisphere," he said.

Geckos range in length from slightly over two inches to as large as almost 14 inches, as the giant geckos in New Caledonia. In 1986, Bauer described a giant gecko found in New Zealand which is close to 2 ½ feet long which lived probably until the middle of the 19^th century and determined it is now probably extinct. 

There are several gecko characteristic that separate them from other lizards. "Geckos are primarily active at night and although there are many who are active on the ground, they are largely thought of as climbing lizards. They have pads on their toes that allow them to climb on walls and climb upside down on ceilings. They lack eyelids so they clean their eyes by licking them. They are generally soft-skinned. People think of lizards as scaly and geckos have scales but they are so minute that they give the animal a silky, velvety appearance," Bauer described.

A budding passion

At what stage in his life did this noted zoologist identify his keen interest in reptiles? Was it a favorite science course in high school or a special project in college?  No, the very young Aaron Bauer would tag along with his grandfather during his caretaker duties on a large Long Island estate. He reveled in discovering what kind of animals he would find under rocks and rotting wood. "I would collect turtles, frogs, salamanders and snakes. But the one animal we didn't have was lizards so naturally they were the most interesting to me. I knew when I was 5 years old that that was it-I was going to be a herpetologist. I grew up looking at National Geographic a lot and when I was less than 10 I'm sure I started pestering my mother, I want to go to Africa! I want to go to Australia! It was in college that I decided that the gecko were the most fascinating to me. At the time there were about 800 species known; now it is probably closed to 1,200. With that much diversity to work on there should be a lot of questions to ask. They also occur in places I have always wanted to explore."

The exhilaration of discovery

"What I find exciting is going to a place where maybe I am the first person to stand on that spot ever and seeing an animal that no one has ever seen before. There is something exhilarating about knowing just for that little bit of time before you publicize it that even though this animal may have been there for millions of years, you are the first person to see it. That is truly exciting.

On a more intellectual level I tend to look at these as bits and pieces of the bigger picture that I work on which is reconstructing the evolutionary history of these lizards in the southern continents. Sometimes you find a new species and that's all it is. But then you may find another new species and it gives you insight into the bigger picture of how these animals have evolved or it may be a key animal for understanding the evolution of a much larger group. Generally, when I find something new, the second I see it I know it is a new species. That excitement is instantaneous."

Bauer and his colleague Ross Sadlier of the Australia Museum have described to date "about 30 new species of geckos and maybe another 15 species of skinks." He also had a new species named for him, Eurydactylodes agricolae. Bauer added, "The species was described by German colleagues. The word "bauer" is German for farmer and farmer in Latin is agricola, hence the name. Another species named after me is currently in print and will be formally described later this year by a colleague in Malaysia."

The adventures continue  

During the 2002-03 academic year, Bauer will take a sabbatical leave from his teaching duties. Lest one thinks he will be holed up in his lab, he has more exciting research plans. In early September, Bauer, along with Villanova biology professor Todd Jackman and post doctoral fellow Sarah Smith ventured back to New Caledonia for three weeks. Then he is off to India and Sri Lanka for a month, a quick trip home for a week and on to South Africa for three weeks. A short respite follows as he returns for the holidays. Trips back to New Caledonia and Borneo, China and a return to South Africa round out his time away from class. Bauer concluded, "I go where the geckos are."