I realise that I have an unusual fascination with reptiles and therefore have amassed an equally unusual repository of trivia and esoterica about them. But I'm frequently baffled by things like that little remark in Raskin's book. Of course, he was a computer UI expert and not a herpetologist*, but surely that's the sort of thing an editor would catch? Books still had editors in 2000.

In my frame of reference, it's "common knowledge" that chameleons are the ones with the independently moving eyes, and geckos are the ones that walk on walls.

Am I grossly overestimating common knowledge?

*) I am also not a herpetologist.

@ConvergeToNaught Because this is the thread where I don't hide my reptile nerd level at all: Gecko feet actually aren't sticky at all - at least in the conventional sense of glue and similar goo.

Rather, they have lamellar structures covered in billions of tiny hair-like "setae", each of which branches out into nanoscopic triangular "spatulae". These are so tiny that they actually interact with the surface on an atomic level (the van der Waals force) - this force is extremely weak, but the collective force of bilions of spatulae is enough to hold the gecko firmly in place. In most species, a single toe is enough to support the entire animal's weight. They also have the neat property of becoming *cleaner* with use, rather than gunking up*.

Geckos actually don't have anywhere near enough muscle power to simply lift their feet off a surface they're climbing on - they release by curling their toes backward. A single foot on a tokay gecko has enough attractive force to support 20 times the animal's body weight!

*) The one exception is when they shed skin - when old skin is coming off their feet, they cannot use this trick. Whereas other lizards will usually get their shedding skin off by rubbing against gritty surfaces, geckos will peel theirs off with their mouths - and often eat it. While it seems to be terribly uncomfortable for all reptiles, for geckos it is much more urgent - they're extremely vulnerable if they can't climb. (Also, they become temporarily blind until they get the old skin off their eyes).