The Little Ghost on the Wall: Meet the Geckos of the Algarve

Switch on the outside light on a warm Algarve evening and, sooner or later, someone arrives. A small, pale lizard with enormous golden eyes, flattened against the wall as if it had been painted there, waiting for the moths to come to it. If it makes you jump, don’t worry: the gecko is the best housemate you never asked for.

Header image: an AI-generated illustration, not a photograph. Our real gecko is in the photos below.

The one in our photo was tucked behind a run of cable conduit, pale pink and almost see-through, watching us with a slit-pupilled eye. So which gecko was it? Mainland Portugal has two, and in the Algarve you can meet both.

Quick facts

• Mainland Portugal has two gecko species: the Moorish gecko (Tarentola mauritanica) and the Turkish or Mediterranean house gecko (Hemidactylus turcicus).
• The Moorish gecko, osga-moura or osga-comum, is abundant in central and southern Portugal and very rare in the north.
• The Turkish gecko, osga-turca, is recorded in the south of Portugal, including the Algarve and parts of the Alentejo.
• Both are insect eaters and both are harmless to people.
• Portugal’s third gecko lives far offshore, on the Selvagens Islands.

The Moorish gecko: the rugged one

This is the gecko most people picture. It is robust, with a broad, flat head, big lidless eyes with vertical pupils, and a back, legs and tail studded with prominent conical bumps, which gives it a slightly armoured, tiny-dinosaur look. Its colour runs from brownish grey to brown, with lighter and darker patches, and it can shift: it tends to look darker when active by day than at night. Adults reach up to about 15 cm including the tail.

It lives across most of the Iberian Peninsula, missing only from north-western Portugal and much of northern Spain. You will often find it hunting under street lamps and outdoor lights in the warmer months, where insects gather. If one has lost its tail, don’t worry: a regrown tail is simply smoother and has none of the original bumps.

The Turkish gecko: the ghost

The Turkish gecko is smaller and far more delicate, usually 10 to 13 cm long. Its skin is pale, tan to pinkish, and so thin that much of the body looks translucent. In spring and summer you can sometimes see a female’s white eggs through the skin of her belly. The back is dotted with dark spots and rows of small white bumps, and the tail is often banded.

In Portugal it occurs in the south, from sea level up to around 400 m. It likes rocky places: cliffs, stone walls, ruins and lived-in houses. It is almost strictly nocturnal. A study in Évora found its activity peaking at around two in the morning, and summer, especially September, is its busiest season. It is also a talker: Turkish geckos make high-pitched squeaks and chirps, and males click.

That pale, pinkish, spotted skin, the slim build and the rows of white bumps are why we think the gecko in our photo is a Turkish gecko rather than a Moorish one.

How to tell them apart

• Build: Moorish is stocky with a broad, flat head. Turkish is slimmer and finer.
• Skin: Moorish is grey-brown and knobbly. Turkish is pale, pinkish and see-through, with dark spots and white bumps.
• Size: Moorish grows to about 15 cm. Turkish usually stays at 10 to 13 cm.
• Where in Portugal: Moorish is common across the centre and south. Turkish is a southern species.

And the third Portuguese gecko?

Portugal does have one more, but you won’t meet it on holiday. The Selvagens Islands, a tiny, remote archipelago that belongs to Madeira, are home to their own gecko, Tarentola boettgeri bischoffi. It was once treated as a separate species, but most recent authors class it as a subspecies, closely related to the gecko of El Hierro in the Canary Islands.

Old fears, good neighbours

Geckos have long had an undeserved reputation in rural Portugal. The authors of the national amphibian and reptile atlas note that the Turkish gecko is persecuted because of superstitions, which they call completely unfounded, and they recommend public awareness campaigns to change that. The truth is far kinder. Both species eat insects, moths, crickets and spiders among them, and they do much of their hunting after dark, right where the bugs gather.

See them today

You don’t need a nature reserve. On a warm evening, look at old stone walls, whitewashed houses and the edges of outdoor lights in any Algarve town. Stay still, give your eyes a minute, and watch the wall. If you spot one inside your apartment, leave it be: it will find its own way out, and it may well eat a few insects on the way.

For more of our favourite corners of the region, see our Lagos guide.

Sources

• Mateus, O. & Jacinto, J. (2008). Hemidactylus turcicus. In: Atlas dos Anfíbios e Répteis de Portugal
• Tarentola mauritanica, Wikipedia
• Tarentola mauritanica (osga-moura), Wikipédia
• Mediterranean house gecko, Wikipedia
• Turkish (Mediterranean) house gecko, Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources
• Tarentola boettgeri, The Reptile Database
• Photos: Octopus Oasis (our gecko); Bernard Dupont, CC BY-SA 2.0 (Moorish gecko); Koppi2, CC BY-SA 3.0 (Turkish gecko); Wikimedia Commons, public domain (Selvagens gecko). Header image: AI-generated illustration (Google Gemini).