On the old walls of one Iranian village lives a gecko science had never named

In Veshnavah village, about 60 kilometres (about 37 miles) southeast of Qom in central Iran, the walls themselves were hiding a species. Researchers from Hakim Sabzevari University, the Aria Herpetological Institute, Moscow State University and partner Iranian institutions collected a small thin-toed gecko at night from thatched and cement village walls — and found it nowhere in the neighbouring mountains. Now named Mediodactylus veshnavahensis, it is at most 41.5 millimetres (about 1.6 inches) long, with six narrow black bands across its back and 12–14 more on its tail. DNA and careful scale measurements showed it is genetically far from its closest look-alike, a distinct species that has lived alongside people, unnoticed, for generations. Old village walls, the team notes, can be a home worth protecting in their own right.