Are Typical Thai "Tokay" Lizards Dangerous? If not, then WHY are people so afraid of them?

[IvorBiggun2]

I caught this a couple of months ago. A young Tokay probably undergoing its first skin shedding. It was hiding under the microwave.

[GammaGlobulin]

9 minutes ago, IvorBiggun2 said:

I caught this a couple of months ago. A young Tokay probably undergoing its first skin shedding. It was hiding under the microwave.

This is amazing.  Thank you very much for posting this.  

I will show this to my landlady.

[Kwasaki]

22 minutes ago, GammaGlobulin said:

This is amazing.  

There's Vid's on Utube Tokay's. 

There's history of them to if you google. 

I read somewhere that I didn't see mentioned here they are referred to as the Thai Dragon.

 

 

Edited July 24, 2021 by Kwasaki

[Old Croc]

I wouldn't want this one living under my microwave:

 

Giant gecko - YouTube

[rumak]

3 hours ago, GammaGlobulin said:

As you say, silly is sometimes better than serious.  Also, for some, this thread might be informative.

yes.... don't take me too seriously.     we good, bro  

Edited July 24, 2021 by rumak

[toofarnorth]

I like listening to Tokays ,we have at least 2 on our back wall , I feed them cat food on a stick. The Tokay over the road has a different call.  One of ours sounds like ' Upyou ' I reply up yours to. The one over the road says 'Talkme '.

My wife has always called them crocodiles , what ever the size from baby geckos to fully grown Tokays.

Oh while here , a pic of a snake with a small frog , pic taken about 3 weeks ago..  Anyone know what the species of snake. ?

Can't find it in my book 'Snakes of Thailand '.

[audaciousnomad]

8 hours ago, sezze said:

I heard Chinese people a few y ago payed quite some money for them , but i never got it confirmed . 

It is true. They STUPIDLY use them for "medicinal" purposes.

https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/feat/archives/2020/11/16/2003746987

[fdsa]

FYI: if a tokay would bite you and won't relax its jaws - put it under the water and it will let you go.

 

 

> Are Typical Thai "Tokay" Lizards Dangerous?

 

no.

 

> If not, then WHY are people so afraid of them?

 

I was told that some Thais believe that tokays grow up into a crocodile ????

Edited July 24, 2021 by fdsa

[Sparktrader]

2 hours ago, IvorBiggun2 said:

I caught this a couple of months ago. A young Tokay probably undergoing its first skin shedding. It was hiding under the microwave.

Cute

[tomazbodner]

The jinjoks are amazing little animals that eat small insects that you would generally not like to see flying or walking around your home, but obviously, what comes in must go out, They are harmless and some people keep them as pets. Like with most wild animals, they are afraid of their own shadow, so holding one in your hand is indeed a very rare event. While having not much if anything to eat in my room, they are always welcome. Thais tell me that they like to eat cooked rice. Not sure that's true as a few of them that wandered into my previous home weren't at all interested in it when trying to feed them. Having one on your hand however is a very strange sensation, as their body is cold. Not cold cold, but a really weird feeling. They are very gentle and very light. But as said, they'll do anything to avoid you and stay still hoping you don't notice them, or run away if you come close.

 

As for the original question why Thais don't like them or why they are so afraid of them... no idea. I've heard something about some spirits (ghosts) of some ancestors story, but I've only heard it once and other Thais had no idea about that, so I would doubt that's the true reason.

[audaciousnomad]

25 minutes ago, toofarnorth said:

I like listening to Tokays ,we have at least 2 on our back wall , I feed them cat food on a stick. The Tokay over the road has a different call.  One of ours sounds like ' Upyou ' I reply up yours to. The one over the road says 'Talkme '.

My wife has always called them crocodiles , what ever the size from baby geckos to fully grown Tokays.

Oh while here , a pic of a snake with a small frog , pic taken about 3 weeks ago..  Anyone know what the species of snake. ?

Can't find it in my book 'Snakes of Thailand '.

Kind of looks like a Bronzeback Snake.
 

 

Edited July 24, 2021 by audaciousnomad

[IvorBiggun2]

17 minutes ago, toofarnorth said:

Anyone know what the species of snake. ?

I'd go for a Golden Tree snake.

[IvorBiggun2]

Another Tokay I caught and a scorpion. Plus the lair of a Tarantula spider

[bunnydrops]

The Thais' here believe that they don't like the smell of onions and hang cloth bags of them where they don't want them to hangout. I have once seen a woman chasing one with a bag with onions on the end of a stick. The Tokey made a hell of a lot of noise, a barking like noise and what sounded like snapping of its teeth. It never turned to attack though.

For show and tell, here is the end of a "winner take all snake fight". I didn't stick around to see how the meal was going to end.

[Kanada]

5 hours ago, Kanada said:

I don’t get it….these things poop ???? and pee constantly and everywhere and attract snakes ???? 

No lizards in the house for me…they can live outside the house all they want….

This snake is right outside our living room window over the koi pond chasing a lizard! Trust me they are both gone now but snakes come for frogs too so we took all plants out of the pond to keep frogs away too

[Kanada]

42 minutes ago, IvorBiggun2 said:

Another Tokay I caught and a scorpion. Plus the lair of a Tarantula spider

We have a lot of tarantula lairs in our garden…every once in awhile the cats get one and bring it to the back door to show it off!

I don’t mind them at all….quit and stick to themselves!

[connda]

10 hours ago, GammaGlobulin said:

Most people that I have spoken to are deathly afraid of the larger variety of Dukge.  

They are afraid of large Dukke's for the same reason they are afraid of ghosts.  If you hit one of those with a light hanging on the wall with glaring red eyes, it conjures up every ghost image that Thais have been taught to fear through the mass media since birth. 
The only reason we prefer not to have them around is because their urine smells pretty bad.  So we don't encourage them to hang around (the cats pretty well take care of that problem).  The Jingjos.  They're welcome as they are voracious bug eaters.  Dried Jingjo poop is evidence of less flying critters.

[Kanada]

4 hours ago, GammaGlobulin said:

What does that look like.  I have what look like centipedes and millipedes, as well as the scorpions, as I mentioned.  Which is the dangerous one?

This is the baddest boy in the jungle….excruciating bite.

when we moved back into this house after four years vacant we found two dead ones!

Dont play around….it’s on the list of most painful bites!

[connda]

10 minutes ago, Kanada said:

We have a lot of tarantula lairs in our garden…every once in awhile the cats get one and bring it to the back door to show it off!

I don’t mind them at all….quit and stick to themselves!

Our oldest dog had a run in with a tarantula when he was a pup.
The tarantula did it's best Sholin-Monk tarantula fighting pose.  The pup came away with two holes in his nose.  He never messed with spiders after that. Spiders in general get a free pass in our house and garden.  I prefer the tarantulas to stay outside.  Huntsman spiders are ok inside.  They just look scary.  Centipedes?  As much as I don't like killing things I make exceptions for them. I don't want them around breeding.  Scorpions get swept up and deposited over the wall.  What's left?  Wasps (Dtaa).  Unfortunately will exterminate those nest when the appear.  That's another critter like centipedes that are highly aggressive and can be deadly.

And Dukke's.  They can hang out in the out buildings and sheds but honestly I haven't seen one around for a few years.  Which is ok.  They can be a problem for nesting songbird and we have a lot of songbirds in our yards. 

 

Edited July 24, 2021 by connda

[billsmart]

I have both the smaller (jingjoke) and larger (tokay) lizards in my house. I'm not afraid of either. They both scatter when they see a person. But I wouldn't try to catch one with my hands. I saw one of my tokays grab a small bird that had made its way into my house and eventually swallow it like a snake would.

 

Edited July 24, 2021 by billsmart

[JonnyF]

3 hours ago, KarenBravo said:

Let's get one thing straight. Ching-choks and Tokays do not eat mosquitoes (except in the jungle).

Ching-choks and Tokays hang around electric lights. Mosquitoes are drawn to darkness.

So, what is the likelihood that a mosquito will even get in range for these Geckos to eat them?

They don't. They eat other insects that are attracted to the light. They have field days when termites and ants take to the wing.

 

Any Gecko found in the house is fair game for a whack. All Geckos outside are left alone.

I do not want poop in my kitchen, or bedrooms.

 

 

Same here. They make noise (generally in the middle of the night), they poo everywhere and they attract larger animals to eat them, whether that be rats, mice, snakes or whatever. They also make you jump out of your skin when you reach into a cupboard for cereal at 6am and they scurry off.

 

Don't get me wrong, I love animals and I love nature. If I see them in the field I'll leave them alone. But I don't want them in or around the house. Me and the dog are perfectly aligned on the issue. A lot of dogs run away when the owner picks up a stick whereas mine gets super excited about what we're about to hunt, it's his favourite activity.  

[JonnyF]

13 minutes ago, Kanada said:

This is the baddest boy in the jungle….excruciating bite.

when we moved back into this house after four years vacant we found two dead ones!

Dont play around….it’s on the list of most painful bites!

I got bitten by a small one about a year ago. Painful, but not as bad as I expected. My heart was racing for a couple of hours and my finger was swollen for a day but it was manageable as long as my finger was in ice.

 

It was small though, maybe 1.5 inches. I stupidly put my hand into a bucket with a bit of wet mud in the bottom to clean it out and didn't realize it was in there. The first 5 minutes was extremely painful but it subsided after that, but it was still bad enough to ruin my day. 

 

My Thai dogs will kill anything. Snakes, squirrels, rats, pigeons, mice, chickens etc. but these things are the only things they won't go near.

 

[toofarnorth]

1 hour ago, audaciousnomad said:

Kind of looks like a Bronzeback Snake.
 

 

That indeed could be my snake , the pics in my book don't do it justice but this looks cool.

[toofarnorth]

8 minutes ago, JonnyF said:

I got bitten by a small one about a year ago. Painful, but not as bad as I expected. My heart was racing for a couple of hours and my finger was swollen for a day but it was manageable as long as my finger was in ice.

 

It was small though, maybe 1.5 inches. I stupidly put my hand into a bucket with a bit of wet mud in the bottom to clean it out and didn't realize it was in there. The first 5 minutes was extremely painful but it subsided after that, but it was still bad enough to ruin my day. 

 

My Thai dogs will kill anything. Snakes, squirrels, rats, pigeons, mice, chickens etc. but these things are the only things they won't go near.

 

I hate even the look of them , almost a natural instinct , the millipedes I can pick up and full grown ones I will ride my pushbike round, Here's one I met earlier. But is the other pic half a millipede ?

[IvorBiggun2]

Not a millipede but a wood louse

[IvorBiggun2]

Many believe that millipedes bite. Totally untrue 

[rumak]

5 hours ago, GammaGlobulin said:

As you say, silly is sometimes better than serious.  Also, for some, this thread might be informative.

OK.   i will try to help  ????        The correct way ( i will try my best to phoneticize ตุ๊กแก )  : the first letter

is a consonant not seen in english   thai letter  dtor dtow  .      like saying   d and t together.  (this consonant also should be aspirated  :  pronounced with an exhalation of breath )  

 

so  DTOO (ooh sound like in too)     DTOOG   GAE    ( ae  sound also difficult to explain......  kind of like

AIR  without the R    )         

 

dtooggae   dtooggae   dtooggae  dtooggae   dtooggae            plop... poo

[chilli42]

10 hours ago, GammaGlobulin said:

Yes.  These guys really can move.  BUT, these guys are OBVIOUSLY just too cute and benign.  I was talking about the larger lizards that look very fierce.

 

By the way...do you have any explanation for the purpose of this guy's super long tail?

 

Obviously, there must be some reason for this adaptation.

 

Think about it.

 

Here in SE Asia, we can see wondrous things that we never saw before.

 

Probably, any child where we come from would be enraptured by having a lizard with such a long tail available just outside his home.

 

Lizards like this, you gotta pay much money for, where we come from, I suppose.

Not sure it’s the tail is the main purpose but these guys can swim like a fish. As fast on water as they are on land.

[chilli42]

These are they lizards I I really stay well away from.  Nose to tail, this guy is close to 2 meters long.

[MayBeNow]

Me and gf were on Ko Samet. Rented a nice little bungalow on the beach (rocks). One night we came back and i wanted to open the door. A full grown tookay above the door. Freaked me out and i jumped backwards. Tookay ran of pounding the wooden wall. Beautiful animal.

Thanks for this very nice thread, i enjoy learning more about these animals.

Edited July 24, 2021 by MayBeNow