KEEP your eye on the shelves of your local hardware store, where in the next few years you may be able to find new tape from an unlikely source: the gecko.

“Geckos have millions of microscopic hairs on their toes, each with hundreds of tips that adhere to surfaces, with no residue left behind,” said Kellar Autumn, a biology professor at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Ore. “Their hairs can stay attached indefinitely.”

Mr. Autumn and scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, were responsible for the research that enabled Mark Cutkosky, a professor of mechanical engineering at Stanford, to develop a prototype for a tape based on gecko adhesion. The tape, which is reusable, was so strong, Mr. Autumn said, that when they tested it, he was able to stick his 50-pound, 8-year-old daughter to a window with it.

That was a little more than two years ago; there are now at least 50 patent applications pending in gecko-adhesion technology, Mr. Autumn said, and he holds several patents himself.