In our childhood memories, we are always full of interesting animals, and in the summer we will catch, catch frogs, roast grasshoppers, and make a boring and tedious life colorful. Of course, in addition to these interesting things, summer is more annoying mosquitoes and oil thieves.
Cicada noise in summer
However, everything is mutually exclusive, although mosquitoes are like leeks, cutting a stubble and a stubble, but in the face of the mosquito buster - gecko, it still has the upper hand. But it is such a beneficial insect, but it is one of the "five poisons" known as highly toxic. Why, geckos are five poisons? How harmful does that seem?
A gecko that loves mosquitoes
In our homes, we can always find some strange animals, such as spiders, moths, cockroaches, etc., and their presence makes the peaceful life always waver and frightened. However, these things are not without nemesis, that is, geckos. Geckos, a reptile vertebrate, belong to the gecko family, with a large family tree with nearly 950 species of branches, which can be called leafy.
The gecko is a small lizard with a triangular head, a pointed snout, and a long body covered with scales, it has four claws, each with nearly 1 billion invisible cilia, which is the magic weapon for the gecko to "fly over the wall". Most geckos prefer warm climates, so they mostly live in temperate and tropical regions, for example, China's geckos are more common in the south. However, geckos can last more than 50 million years on the earth, and they also have extremely strong survivability, so geckos often appear in the desert and the Gobi Desert.
gecko
Geckos are used to going out at night, hiding in the dark, damp corners of the walls and kitchens during the day, and only start the day when night falls. At this moment, in order to fill their stomachs, they will strike hard at moths, mosquitoes, cockroaches and other insects, and sweep away these disturbing things. Therefore, in this regard, in addition to looking fierce, the gecko is also a beneficial insect.
Gecko molts
Moreover, although they always make a frightening "hissing" sound, they are actually gentle in temperament, do not actively attack and bite humans, and are very timid, and run away when they are frightened. When they deal with the intrusion of fright and strong enemies, they also derive a stunt, that is, "breaking the tail to survive". When the gecko is strongly stimulated by the outside world or pulled by external forces, the gecko's tail muscles will strongly contract to break the tail, and the broken tail also has a neural response, so it constantly twists to attract attention, so that it can escape the ascension with the tail. This phenomenon is called "self-cutting", and the gecko has a special transverse cell in the tail that can constantly differentiate, so it will not be long before the gecko will regenerate a new tail.
Gecko severed tail
However, such a docile beneficial insect was listed by the ancestors as one of the "five poisons", and it was a terrible poison that was said to be dead. Why do geckos become the five poisons? What are the Five Poisons?
How did the gecko become the "five poisons"?
Wu Poison is a frequent guest in martial arts novels, mostly appearing in negative images, mainly referring to centipedes, poisonous snakes, scorpions, geckos and toads, these five poisonous insects. In the setting of the novel, they are highly poisonous, and because of their small size, they are a weapon that hurts people. Since ancient times, China has spread the tradition of driving away the five poisons during the Dragon Boat Festival, and during the Dragon Boat Festival, people should wear sachets, eat five poison cakes, and paste five poison maps to prevent and expel the five poisons. Looking at the five poisons, several other poisonous insects do have a history of attacking people and harming people's lives, but geckos do not seem to have hurt people, why are geckos still among them?
Wudu
This is because the ancients believed that geckos devour poisonous insects such as flying mosquitoes and spiders every day, and long-term consumption cannot avoid being poisonous, which feels as if they are raising clams, and the surviving geckos are naturally extremely poisonous. The ancients believed that the gecko's urine and semen were the most poisonous, and that they would die when touched and seriously injured when smelled. And because geckos always lie out at night, the ancients believed that nothing overnight could be eaten, and it was possible to get the poison of geckos.
So, are geckos really what the ancients thought to be highly poisonous? Not necessarily. We have tested through modern technology, the whole body of the gecko and its body fluids, found that the gecko does not have poisonous glands, and there is no toxin reaction in the body fluids and excrement, but there is some slight acidity and carry salmonella. When people touch the excrement, there is a corrosive reaction, the skin becomes red, itchy, or after eating food or water contaminated by geckos, salmonella infection leads to food poisoning. But neither is a fatal cause.
salmonella
However, ancient societies were inefficient, and a gust of wind could kill people, and people felt very vulnerable to life. Therefore, when he found the redness and swelling caused by the gecko and the phenomenon of food poisoning, he was very frightened, and in panic, he regarded the gecko as a deadly poison. Of course, geckos eating spiders may also be one of the reasons why they listed it in the "five poisons".
A deeply hidden gecko
The above reasons are only one of the reasons why geckos have become the "five poisons". Another reason why geckos have become the "five poisons" is because it is also a chinese herbal medicine. Chinese medicine is broad and profound, with a long history, not only plants can be medicated, animals can also be medicated, poisons can also be used after concoction, in Chinese medicine can be described as medical poison does not separate families. Moreover, as early as the classics of the Western Zhou Dynasty, it is recorded that "whoever heals the wounded shall attack it with five poisons".
The gecko is made into a traditional Chinese medicine
Chinese medicine advocates "attacking poison with poison", even arsenic can be used in medicine, so the five poisons are also a good recipe for the world, and geckos can be used throughout the body. The webbed gecko can dispel wind and evil spirits and activate bones and bones, so it can treat diseases such as stroke, rheumatism and lung cancer, which can be called a miracle medicine. Because geckos and toads and other poisons can be used in medicine, over time the ancients naturally reduced it to one place and became one of the "five poisons".
Arthritis manifestations
In modern society, geckos, in addition to medicinal uses, are also biological samples that people study and invent. According to the gecko's supreme "light work", people have developed tools with stronger grip ability and special materials with strong viscosity to add strength to our development. However, in the end, the deepening of geckos research and the revival of traditional Chinese medicine, geckos were either caught in the laboratory or made into medicinal materials, and the population declined rapidly, resulting in geckos being included in the list of endangered red species and becoming near-threatened animals. In addition, human overdiscaling, as well as the abuse of pesticides, are also one of the reasons for the sharp decline in geckos.
epilogue
Geckos, now an endangered animal, are about to disappear from our world, in order to protect biodiversity, but also to live a summer without mosquitoes, we should take action to protect geckos and leave our childhood memories.