Gecko butt-dials 'bazillion' times from Hawaii seal hospital

This Oct. 3, 2018, photo provided by The Marine Mammal Center hospital director Claire Simeone shows a gecko on a phone at the center in Kailua Kona, Hawaii. The gecko is the culprit in making numerous calls in the phones' recent call history with his tiny feet. (Clair Simeone/The Marine Mammal Center via AP)
Claire Simeone


HONOLULU (AP) — If you got incessant phone calls last week from a hospital that cares for Hawaiian monk seals, you were butt-dialed.

Or, more specifically, foot-dialed.

By a gecko.

Marine mammal veterinarian Claire Simeone was at lunch when she got a call from Ke Kai Ola, the Big Island hospital where she's director. There was silence on the other end. Nine more silent calls followed. Fearing a seal emergency, she rushed back.

She wasn't the only one getting calls, and people started asking why the hospital was calling non-stop.

Trying figure out why a "bazillion" calls were made from one line, she called the phone company and a rep tried to talk her through finding a possible line on the fritz. She walked into a lab and found the culprit. The gecko was perched on a phone, making calls to everyone in the recent call history with "HIS TINY GECKO FEET," she wrote in a Twitter thread the next day, detailing the saga.

Read more: http://www.yankton.net/news/strange_ap/article_e612276f-b4e4-54a2-acd8-e390a8016b0d.html