How does the tokay gecko see?

The tokay gecko (Gekko gecko) is a reptile in the order not recorded. Its eyes belong to the vision type Colour or navigation at night: superposition or light-hungry eyes: colour vision at starlight (hawkmoth, gecko, nocturnal bee), star navigation (dung beetle), giant spider eyes.

Measured in this species: colour, night vision and motion (flicker fusion). Measured core: measured values on at least 3 of the 6 dials. Every value below carries its evidence level and sources; nothing is typed by hand.

Sample scene drawn in code: a face with red lips, a green shirt, red and green apples, flowers and a colour strip, as a person sees it. — The sample scene as a person sees it.

The same sample scene rendered by the See Like Animals engine for the tokay gecko's eyes, using the values in the table below. — The same scene rendered for the tokay gecko (60° field of view, daylight).

See your photo as the tokay geckoThis species is part of the full catalogue in the tool (full unlock). Your photo stays on your device.

What stands out

It has three colour receptor classes, like most people, but one of them sees ultraviolet.
It stops seeing flicker at 20.5 Hz, against 60 Hz for people in this dataset, so fast motion looks choppier to it.^[11][13]
Activity pattern: nocturnal.

The six dials

Evidence levels: how the tiers work. "Measured" means a value measured in this species; "Estimated" values come from a close relative or an eye-size formula.

Vision values for the tokay gecko (Gekko gecko), catalogue-v1
Dial	Value	Evidence	Sources
Colour	Colour receptors 3 receptor classes: 364 nm (UVS), 467 nm (SWS (blue)), 521 nm (MWS (green)) measured in this species	Measured (not re-verified)	^[1][2]
Colour	Ultraviolet yes: at least one receptor peaks in the ultraviolet	Measured (not re-verified)
Sharpness	No value in the catalogue.
Field of view	No value in the catalogue.
Sharp zones (foveas)	Number of foveas 2 mode of species-v1 relatives in class Squamata: Anolis carolinensis, Furcifer pardalis	Group default	^[3][4]
Sharp zones (foveas)	Fovea type central fovea, temporal	Group default	^[3][4]
Night vision	Activity pattern nocturnal mode of 7 rows (of 7 rows): Nocturnal; nocturnal	Measured (not re-verified)	^{[5][6][7][1][8][9][10]}
	Pupil shape vertical	Measured	^[6]
	Rods vs cones rod-dominated nocturnal -> rod-dominated; crepuscular / cathemeral / mixed -> mixed; diurnal -> cone-dominated	Derived	^{[5][6][7][1][8][9][10]}
Motion (flicker fusion)	Flicker fusion frequency 20.5 Hz median of 2 rows (no bright-light flag) (behavioural/whole-eye ERG rows; all rows: [20.0, 21.0])	Measured	^[11][12]

Related animals

Helmet gecko same vision type
Inagua least gecko same vision type
Indo-Pacific gecko same vision type
Elephant hawk-moth same vision type
Hummingbird hawk-moth same vision type
Nocturnal sweat bee same vision type

More reptiles: all reptiles with measured vision data.

Sources

Longcore T. 2023. A compendium of photopigment peak sensitivities and visual spectral response curves of terrestrial wildlife to guide design of outdoor nighttime lighting. Basic Appl Ecol 73:40-50. doi:10.1016/j.baae.2023.09.002. doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8432720
VPOD in-vivo (MSP / single-cell) lambda max compendium, file scp_cleaned.csv, VPOD GitHub (Frazer et al. 2025 bioRxiv 10.1101/2025.08.22.671864). github.com/VisualPhysiologyDB/visual-physiology-opsin-db/tree/main/scripts_n_notebooks/vpod_ML_workflows/mine_n_match/data_sources/lmax/vpod
species_v1:Fleishman et al. 1988 / Makaretz & Levine 1980
species_v1:Ott & Schaeffel 1995
Angielczyk KD, Schmitz L 2014. Nocturnality in synapsids predates the origin of mammals by over 100 million years. Proc R Soc B 281: 20141642. Dryad doi:10.5061/dryad.1v8kj.. doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2014.1642
Banks MS, Sprague WW, Schmoll J, Parnell JAQ, Love GD. 2015. Science Advances 1:e1500391. doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.1500391
Choiniere JN, Neenan JM, Schmitz L, Ford DP, Chapelle KEJ, Balanoff AM, Sipla JS, Georgi JA, Walsh SA, Norell MA, Xu X, Clark JM, Benson RBJ. 2021. Evolution of vision and hearing modalities in theropod dinosaurs. Science 372:610-613. doi:10.1126/science.abe7941. Data: https://osf.io/teq73/. doi.org/10.1126/science.abe7941
Schmitz & Motani 2011. Nocturnality in dinosaurs inferred from scleral ring and orbit morphology. Science 332:705. Comparative data redeposited in Xing et al. 2020 supplementary information (Zenodo).. doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3591994
Meiri 2024. SquamBase: a database of squamate (Reptilia: Squamata) traits. Global Ecol Biogeogr (data Zenodo 10602503).. doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10602503
Moura et al. 2024. A phylogeny-informed characterisation of global tetrapod traits addresses data gaps and biases. PLoS Biol 22:e3002658. TetrapodTraits v3.0.1.. doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22536349
Healy K, McNally L, Ruxton GD, Cooper N, Jackson AL. 2013. Metabolic rate and body size are linked with perception of temporal information. Animal Behaviour 86:685-696. Table 1. doi.org/10.1016/j.anbehav.2013.06.018
Lafitte A, Sordello R, Legrand M, Nicolas V, Obein G, Reyjol Y. 2022. A flashing light may not be that flashy: A systematic review on critical fusion frequencies. PLoS ONE 17(12): e0279718. S10 File (CFF database). doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0279718
Inger R, Bennie J, Davies TW, Gaston KJ. 2014. Potential biological and ecological effects of flickering artificial light. PLoS ONE 9(5): e98631. Table 3. doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0098631

Every value cites its sources (all sources). Data: catalogue-v1, built 2026-09-29. Accuracy notes: how accurate is this?