On the trail of a ghost: The history of the Cupola gecko

Friday, 9 April 2021

A number of the rare alpine Cupola geckos have been found in the Sabine Valley in the Nelson Lakes National Park.

A lizard seen only twice in 53 years. Samantha Gee tracks the history of the elusive Cupola gecko.

A student who stumbled across a uniquely patterned gecko in the Nelson Lakes while studying deer in the 1960s, put it in the pocket of his woollen shirt and carried it out of the wilderness.

It would be almost 40 years before a gecko of its kind was seen again and another 14 years before the Cupola gecko’s existence was confirmed by scientists.

When John Pearson came across the black and grey gecko scrambling across a scree slope in an alpine basin in 1968, it was purely by chance.

A university student in his early 20s, Pearson was studying red deer in the Nelson Lakes National Park.

The first Cupola gecko was found by John Pearson in the Cupola Basin, Nelson Lakes National Park in 1968.

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Starting in the summer of 1966, he spent several years travelling to the Cupola Basin where he was based at the New Zealand Forest Service Hut, first trapping deer and observing them as part of his research into big game management.

“The longest I was up there was for about six weeks, but normally it was two to three weeks until I finally came out in 1969.

“I must admit I got to the stage I wasn’t sure I wanted to come out, it is very easy to get bush happy.”

Pearson was living in Wellington and would travel across the Cook Strait by ferry, up the Wairau Valley on a scooter, to the head of Lake Rotoiti in a small boat, before walking for seven hours up the Travers Valley to reach the hut.

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“If a sou’wester was blowing it was very difficult to get my little scooter out of third gear, I was almost blown backwards.”

On the day of his discovery, Pearson was walking along a trapline back towards the hut when he noticed a gecko scrabbling up some rocky scree, unlike any other lizard he had ever seen.

“I just happened to be in the right place at the right time to see this thing and I had obviously disturbed it, it had run out from some short grass onto the scree.”

He picked it up and put it in the pocket of his woollen bush shirt.

Back at the hut, Pearson put the gecko in an Agee jar with holes poked in the lid. He said it became his companion for the remainder of the trip, and he likened it to Tom Hanks’ character in Castaway with the volleyball named Wilson.

“I would catch flies for the gecko and try to feed it, I think I probably gave it a name.

“When you are by yourself for a bit and you don't have any other people to talk to, you get a bit stir crazy.”

After leaving the park, he took the gecko to his friend and lizard conservationist, Tony Whitaker who was working for the ecology division of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (DSIR).

Herpetologist Tony Whitaker, a passionate lizard conservationist, was confident Pearson had discovered a new gecko species.

“I really only collected it because I thought he would be interested in it.

“He was widely regarded as the world authority on skinks and geckos and discovered many new species in New Zealand, several of which are named after him.”

He said while Whitaker was excited about the find, he “wasn’t all that impressed” Pearson had brought the lizard out of the national park, but suspected it was a new species and kept it until its death.

“We certainly wouldn’t be collecting it now.”

After that, Pearson said he never came across another gecko, nor went looking for one and “everybody sort of forgot about it for 50 years”.

In 2019, he read an article in the Dominion Post, about a rare alpine gecko that remained a mystery after first being seen in the Nelson Lakes in the 60s and Pearson thought it sounded like his discovery.

Herpetologist Ben Barr with a Cupola gecko, named BGOAT (Best Gecko of All Time) in the Nelson Lakes National Park.

That led him to get in contact with the Department of Conservation, who put him in touch with herpetologist Ben Barr.

Barr had been searching for the Cupola gecko – the “holy grail of New Zealand herpetology' . His conversation with Pearson gave him a much better idea of where it was first found.

Returning to the area last month, Barr and his team made the remarkable discovery of four Cupola geckos in the Sabine Valley.

Pearson was one of the first people he called with the news that more than 50 years on, they had finally found the gecko again.

“It was absolutely brilliant to hear, I wondered if I hadn’t found the first one would no-one have gone looking?”

Matthew Shields wrote in a hut book that he had seen a grey gecko while tramping in the Nelson Lakes National Park.

Barr sent him photos, which brought back memories of his “little friend”.

“It was really great, it shows that persistence pays off,” Pearson said.

Finding evidence of the elusive Cupola gecko has long been on Barr’s mind.

Other than Pearson’s encounter, the only other verified sighting of the gecko was in 2007 when Nelson teacher Roger Waddell and his son were hiking in the Sabine Valley and came across a pattterned gecko basking in the sun on the side of a scree slope in a river flat.

They took photos, which later appeared on posters in DOC huts throughout the Nelson Lakes asking, “have you seen this gecko?” and encouraging trampers to report any sightings.

The Cupola gecko, sighted by Roger Waddell in 2007 while hiking in the Sabine Valley in the Nelson Lakes National Park.

A decade later, Australian tramper Matthew Shields wrote in a hut visitor book that he had seen a 'grey gecko' below the Travers Saddle in March 2017.

DOC contacted Shields, who described the gecko which he had seen basking on a rock on the side of the track, as having a pattern “similar to lichen”.

It was Shields encounter that led Barr and fellow ecologist Dylan van Winkel to undertake a survey in the Nelson Lakes in 2019, starting with a search of the site where the gecko was last seen.

They spent almost 100 hours scouring the landscape, finding only a possible scat, though they remained hopeful a population was out there.

Ben Barr, left, Jen Waite, and Marieke Lettink found several Cupola geckos on a recent survey mission.

“Since 1968 there have essentially been two proper records with photos, other than that they are just a complete enigma.”

For Barr, a love of geckos had been lifelong. As a seven-year-old at primary school he formed a gecko club, corralling others to join him in his search for lizards, although they never managed to sight one.

He has seen plenty since, having studied lizards for his masters before going on to work with them for the last 15 years.

“I just find them really cute, for a start, these tiny little beings you know, with their little feet and claws and scales and eyes and the way that they breathe and move around. They are like bugs, but I just find them more interesting.

The Cupola geckos were recently discovered in the Sabine Valley, in the Nelson Lakes National Park.

“I have always been totally fascinated by them.”

A leg injury kept Barr out of the hills last year, but in January, he heard that a volunteer with a DOC team surveying the national park for rock wren and kea had flipped a rock and spotted a gecko that looked like the Cupola.

Barr and a team were “hot on their heels” heading into the catchment where it was sighted, first finding a skin, then a scat.

On the last day of that trip, one of the team Tom Robinson flipped a rock and saw a gecko. He almost caught it, managing only to get the tip of its tail, which at the least gave the team a genetic sample for analysis.

“I was happy but I really wanted to get one in the hand so we could have a close look at it and take photos and get scale counts,' Barr said.

A recently discvered pregnant female Cupola gecko, named Whetū Ahiahi, which means evening star in te reo Māori.

But time was ticking, Barr said the sooner they found the gecko, the better.

“I felt really responsible for it, this thing, because it was such a ghost, the general feeling was that it may not even exist anymore, or if it does there is the odd one here and there.”

On his 12th day of searching, with the prints worn off the pads of his fingers from lifting so many rocks, Barr finally found what he had been searching for.

“There have been six expeditions to look for them and they have all come up empty, to actually get one and see one and hold one was really wild and we were ecstatic.

“That partial sense of doom, responsibility and anticipation, all those things came together when I lifted that rock and to see a gecko, it was a phenomenal feeling, it really was just out of this world.”

The gecko is currently classed as taxonomically indeterminate. It has been called Mokopirirakau 'Cupola', which is a tag name, not a formal description.

Barr said the discovery of four geckos in as many weeks indicated there was a bigger population, but it wasn’t healthy in comparison to other alpine gecko populations.

Verifying the gecko's existence was a high priority as it could then be given a threat classification, which meant it would be eligible for conservation funding.

The Cupola gecko is one of seven lizards classed as data deficient by the Department of Conservation.

Department of Conservation science advisor Jo Monks said the recent findings, while incredibly exciting, were not likely to be enough to lift the species out of the data deficient category.

Genetic analysis of the tail meant the gecko's taxonomy would be known in the coming months, but Monks said based on its morphology, they were confident it was a unique species.

From there, DOC would work with iwi to have the species lodged with Te Papa.

She said the discoveries allowed scientists to understand more about the gecko’s environment. The results indicated they were not abundant, nor were they very detectable in the landscape given scientists had lifted thousands of rocks to uncover four specimens.

“You have to have a few animals in the hand and see the habitat exactly as they are using it to get that insight into where to look, until then it is really a needle in a haystack.”

But the findings would allow scientists to do more survey work and apply the learnings in similar habitats.

It also gave hope for the other six lizards currently classed as data deficient by the Department of Conservation, their threat status also unable to be assessed.

Funding from Budget 2018 for threatened and data deficient species would cover another survey for the gecko in 2022 and Monks said the biggest limitation going forward would be a lack of funding to allow for further research.

Ultimately, it was hoped that the species could not only be raised out of the data deficient category and given a threat classification, but scientists could learn enough about the elusive Cupola gecko in order to manage and monitor its population to protect it from extinction.