New species found 12,000 miles from home
French scientists say they have hatched a new gecko species from an egg plucked from its nest in a South Pacific island and carried 12,000 miles to Paris in a box lined with Kleenex.
France’s National Museum of Natural History says the discovery marks the first time a new species of lizard has been catalogued based on an individual raised from an egg.
The museum says it is baptised with the Latin name Lepidodactylus buleli and makes its home near the tops of the trees that line the west coast of Espiritu Santo, one of the larger islands of the Vanuatu archipelago, east of Australia.
Just three inches, the gecko lives in trees, feeding off ants and other insects and, possibly, the nectar it sips from treetop flowers.
The species is not thought to be endangered.
