Seen under the microscope each toe has around two million tiny hairs on its underside. Under the higher magnification of an electron microscope the end of each of these hairs is seen to split into hundreds of even tinier nano-hairs, which scientists have called spatulae. These hairs are so small that they are able to establish contact with the molecular structure of the surface the gecko is walking on. With that near-perfect contact the hairs are stuck to the surface by elctromagnetic forces called van der Waals forces. The molecules on the feet and on the surface have areas of slight positive or negative charge that attract each other like mini magnets when they get really close.