If you get close to a gecko, it’ll do what looks like push ups. This is their way of making themselves look bigger to other potential predators; specifically snakes, spiders, and scorpions. I used to think it was cute as a kid, because geckos are small, harmless animals, and only a psychopath or someone with bad memories associated with said small, harmless animals (stepping on one by accident as a kid, for example) would see them as anything other than cute. I learned that around the time I was eleven or twelve, I believe, and it didn’t come as much of a shock considering I was learning about the wildlife in Arizona (my home state) and was also nearing puberty. (Basically, I was starting to lose my childlike sense of wonder and all that)

Since then, I’ve always thought it was curious how I interpreted something that was meant to be self-defense as something that was cutesy or whatever. Kinda like how clapping our hands as a sign of approval and not a sign of warning is an odd thing for us humans to do, and yet we almost universally accept it. That’s quite humorous in its own way.