You may have noticed that some lizards can walk up glass with apparent ease. While your first suspicion may be that their feet have some sort of natural “glue” on them, the reality is much more intricate. Geckos and Anoles have structures on their feet that use what are called van der Waals forces. Without delving into an entire physics lesson, these are “weak, short-range electrostatic attractive forces between uncharged molecules, arising from the interaction of permanent or transient electric dipole moments,” or more simply—distance-dependent interactions between atoms or molecules.
This lesson is part of Certified Herpetological Guide. Enrollment is self-paced, with no deadline to finish (about 50 hours).
