The diets of many animals are influenced by resource availability, competition, and evolutionary selected traits enabling the utilization of palatable foods. Omnivores are species that maintain their macronutrient balance by supplementing highly abundant but poor nutritional quality food items, with sporadically available but high nutritional quality food items. Although there are anecdotal observations of Australian geckos (Lacertilia: Gekkonidae) consuming plant exudates, the consumption of plant material has long been considered to be anomalous behavior among Australian geckos. Here, we test the idea that sap feeding may not be anomalous behavior but instead a dietary niche of geckos that has gone unappreciated due to constraints on the methods used to quantify geckos’ diets. We tested this idea by investigating the consumption of Acacia victoriae gum by the gecko Gehyra versicolor using timed searches and time-lapse photography. We found that geckos frequently consumed gum, and G. versicolor numbers were five times greater on A. victoriae trees that exhibited significant gum bleeds compared to gecko numbers on non-bleeding trees. Taken together, our observations that G. versicolor spp. frequently feed on gum along with anecdotal reports of geckos consuming gum provide compelling evidence that gum/sap feeding is not anomalous behavior and suggest that many Australian gecko species are omnivores whose diets include plant exudates and animal prey.

许多动物的饮食都受到资源的可获得性，竞争和能够利用可口食物的进化性状的影响。杂食动物是通过补充高度丰富但营养质量较差的食品和偶发性但营养质量较高的食品来维持其宏观营养平衡的物种。尽管有关于澳大利亚壁虎消耗植物渗出物的传闻证据，但长期以来一直认为消耗植物材料是澳大利亚壁虎的反常行为。在这里，我们测试的想法是汁液喂养可能不是异常行为，而是壁虎的饮食生态位，由于用于量化壁虎饮食的方法的限制，该饮食生态位并未得到重视。我们通过调查消费量来检验了这个想法壁虎Gehyra versicolor的相思树胶，使用定时搜索和定时摄影功能。我们发现壁虎经常食用口香糖，而显示出大量口香糖出血的维多利亚州立树上的杂色革兰氏菌数量是非出血树上的壁虎数量的五倍。两者合计，我们的观察结果表明，G。versicolor spp。经常食用口香糖以及食用壁虎的口香糖的轶事报道提供了令人信服的证据，证明口香糖/树胶的喂养并非异常行为，并表明许多澳大利亚壁虎是杂食性动物，其饮食包括植物渗出液和动物猎物。