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The effects of incline (vertical versus horizontal) on spatio-temporal gait characteristics (stride and step length, frequency, duty factor, degree of sprawling) were measured over a range of speeds in a ground-dwelling (Eublepharis macularius) and a climbing (Gekko gecko) species of gecko. Surprisingly, the climbing species also performs very well when moving on the horizontal substratum. In the present experiments, climbing speeds ranged from 0.6 to 1.2 m s(−)(1), whereas speeds for level locomotion were between 0.6 and 1.8 m s(−)(1). In contrast, the vertical climbing capacities of the ground-dweller are limited (speeds below 0.1 m s(−)(1)versus level speeds between 0.2 and 1.1 m s(−)(1)). In general, we demonstrate that very little adjustment in gait characteristics is made by either species when they are forced to move on their non-habitual substratum. Moreover, gait characteristics differ little between the …