Dr. Claire Simeone is a veterinarian and the director of the Ke Kai Ola Marine Mammal Center in Hawaii. Yesterday she, and quite a few other people connected with the facility, began getting silent phone calls, over and over. They were coming from the center, so complaints came to Simeone.
Simeone says that Hawaiian Telecom, the center’s phone company, confirmed that “a bazillion calls” were indeed coming from a single line inside the hospital and asked her to look around to find the problem phone.
When she finally found it, however, the issue wasn’t hardware or software, but footwear—that is, the toe pads on a tiny gold dust day gecko.
Yes, a gecko had climbed onto a phone at the center, specifically onto the touch screen, where his tiny suction-cup feet had originated the phone calls. He was not a regular resident at the Marine Mammal Center, but is suspected of attempting to cold-call potential customers about insurance coverage. You can read the story at Gizmodo, or in her illustrated Twitter thread.
(Image credit: Dr. Claire Simeone)