“For us to figure out if they’re eating,” he says, “we do a poo search and make sure that we’re getting what would appear to be a normal amount of fecal matter from them.”

Maybe they scamper around after bugs at night, but during the day these wafer-thin lizards are splayed flat against the glass sides and wall of their display in Lizards and the Komodo King. Millions of microscopic hairlike structures on their deeply ridged toe pads enable them to stick tight to any surface.

In fact, it looks like you’d have to slide a credit card under one to peel it off.

Clark assures that they can be removed more easily – and need to be occasionally. “When you’re going into the exhibit you need to know where they are so you don’t open the door quickly on one that’s partially above the door and partially on it.”

The broad eponymous leaf-shaped tail, which provides these lizards with exquisite camouflage during the day as they rest, usually pointing down, on tree trunks or branches, can also detach in a pinch — or more accurately at a grab from a predator — and regrow.