Lizards 08/07/202027909 views
So, you finally decided to have a real reptile at home and the choice was made in favor of the spotted leopard gecko. Of course, at first glance it may seem that keeping a leopard gecko is not so easy, but first of all we need to remember that we are responsible for any living creature that we take into our home. The leopard gecko will certainly become everyone's favorite for a long time, because the life expectancy is 13-20 years, but there are cases when these reptiles lived up to 30! Leopard geckos are very neat animals, you don’t need to collect “surprises” from all over the terrarium, they choose a specific place and will always go “to the toilet” there, so cleaning them is a pleasure. There is no smell from these reptiles, they do not cause allergies. Some individuals become so attached to a person that they literally ask to be held. In the evening, after a long day, approaching the terrarium, it is impossible not to smile when you see a pretty face that looks hopefully straight into your eyes. They are so positive, these cute leopard geckos. You can list a lot of positive qualities of these amazing creatures, but the choice is yours. Let's get acquainted, we present to your attention Eublepharis Macularius!
Kit for spotted leopard gecko “Minimum”
Terrarium for leopard gecko
What is better - a terrarium for a leopard gecko or a plastic container? Both options are quite acceptable. Both have their pros and cons when keeping leopard geckos.
A terrarium is more aesthetically pleasing, a living picture in the interior of your home. Gives the owner room to realize his vision of a piece of nature. Transparent glass is more convenient for observing pets and taking photographs. Cons: heavy and breakable.
The container is light, mobile, easy to clean, you can stack several containers on top of each other without breaking. Cons - Not so visually impressive, not very convenient to observe the residents due to the cloudy plastic, photographs are only a top view. But, I repeat, all this is a matter of taste and individual preferences of the owner. You and I will proceed from the needs of the tenant.
Leopard geckos need a horizontal house with a minimum size of approximately 40*30*30 for one adult or for a couple of babies. In an area of 50*40*40 or more, you can keep 2-3 adult individuals. Ventilation holes are required! We will talk about the structure of the terrarium in the “Terrarium” section.
Dimensions
The length of the animal from the nose to the tip of the tail reaches up to 30 cm, but it has a very unusual physique for lizards. Typically, in most lizards, the tail length is from 40 to 50% of the total length, which makes the reptile's body proportional. But in spotted leopard geckos, the tail accounts for only a third of the total length. This does not in the least prevent the lizard from looking “balanced”, and even moreover, the short tail gives it a very cute look. This “limb” plays the role of a storage facility in which fat reserves accumulate. Therefore, hungry times are not scary for the leopard gecko - it can wait them out, using up the fat stored in the tail.
Priming
How to cover the bottom of a leopard gecko terrarium? We keep babies up to six months only on napkins! Next is your choice. There are 3 main directions for keeping leopard geckos:
- continue to cover the bottom with paper towels,
- lay down a synthetic rug,
- transfer to sand.
Let's look at the pros and cons.
Paper towels are very simple and convenient to clean up, it’s easy to monitor your health by looking at excrement, they absorb well, are hygienic, environmentally friendly, when cleaning you are completely free of odors, and lizards don’t eat napkins.
Keeping a leopard gecko on a synthetic mat looks beautiful, especially if it is part of the interior of a species terrarium, and the gecko will not swallow it either. The question of excrement absorption remains open for me. Plus, it’s still plastic or rubber, I personally also have doubts about hygiene, environmental friendliness and ease of cleaning. Maybe I just “don’t know how to cook it”?))
Sand is the most controversial soil. Yes, lizards in nature don’t eat it, but domestic leopard geckos are capable of much more than that... The sand clogs their gastrointestinal tract and the pet faces a very, very sad fate... After I had an adult, well-fed female leopard gecko gobble up a metal bead, having first sniffed it and after licking it, I prefer not to risk the health of my pets and I encourage you to do the same. Pet safety is your peace of mind.
Physiology.
The male is larger than the female, has a more powerful build, a wide neck, a massive head, the tail is thicker at the base with a number of preanal pores (a series of yellowish-brown small dots on the scales between the hind legs) and bulges behind the cloaca. It takes about six months to reliably determine the sex of a leopard gecko. The sex of leopard geckos directly depends on the temperature during egg incubation, which makes it possible to obtain offspring of the required sex with a high probability.
Sexual maturity usually occurs at the age of 9 months, but sometimes earlier and sometimes later. Females weighing at least 45g should be allowed to breed. If a female becomes pregnant before she is fully formed, this can lead to death, delay or stop of her physical development.
The coloring of leopard geckos is sometimes simply incredible. If nature endowed them with a fairly dark color - almost black spots and stripes on a yellow-gray background - then breeders are still getting new morphs to this day. Yellow, orange, pink, white, black, with and without patterns, with stripes and dots - hundreds of fantastic colors (they even tried to bring out blue, but so far not very successfully). The color of the eyes is also amazing - ruby, orange, black, with snake pupils and even marble. Plunging into the world of leopard gecko genetics, you will go on an amazing journey, where at each end point a new incomparable baby will be waiting for you! Therefore, the leopard gecko is not only an interesting animal for amateurs, but also captures the imagination of sophisticated professionals.
Leopard geckos will always be healthy if they pay proper attention to these underlying health issues and understand when they can help on their own and when they need veterinary help.
Based on an article by Elsa, Massachusetts, Boston Translation by Roman Dmitriev Original article on the website: https://www.happygeckofarm.com You can buy the Spotted Leopard Gecko here:
House for leopard gecko
Let's take into account that shelter houses are important for leopard geckos, so for their comfortable living, let your terrarium have at least as many shelters (for example, coconut houses) as there are residents +1 additional house. More is possible, less is wrong! Residents will fight and divide the territory, which is not at all interesting to you and me - wounds on the body and bitten tails are not our goal, right?
Natural habitat and color
The animal is small, about 20 cm in length. The body is covered with small scales, on which pimples stand out here and there. The color has many variations (morph): from bright red to violet-olive shades. Morphs are bred through selection, resulting in very interesting variations that attract even experienced terrarium keepers.
These geckos are nocturnal. They live on rocky foothills and semi-fixed sands in northwestern India, Pakistan, southeastern Afghanistan, and eastern Iran.
Wet chamber
The wet chamber is usually placed one per terrarium. Although, if the area allows you, place 2 wet chambers - one in a warm area (where the heating mat is located), and the second in a cool area. You will see for yourself which wet chamber your leopard geckos will choose. Mine always prefer warm. A wet chamber is necessary for normal molting of geckos, and some individuals simply use it constantly, they love to sleep there)))
Shared keeping of several animals.
Under no circumstances should leopard geckos be kept with other animals, or several males in the same terrarium. There will be fights for territory, even to the point of death. The animals themselves are not aggressive, but are very territorial and do not perceive strangers. If you want to keep more than one animal, then it is best to purchase several females for one male, from two to ten. The male can simply torture one female.
Behavior
Unlike many lizards, the spotted leopard gecko cannot be called shy or withdrawn. He willingly communicates with his owner and is very curious. This is natural: in desert or barren steppe conditions, it is difficult to quickly find shelter in case of danger. It is much easier to be interested in everything that is happening around in order to find out about the threat in advance. Of course, nothing threatens the domestic leopard gecko, but its natural habits make it a very sociable and “contact” pet.
Another advantage of these reptiles is how long leopard geckos live. If you provide your pet with the necessary conditions, it can live up to 20 years, and in some rare cases even up to 30!
Purchase
"Leopard" can be purchased on special websites. In some large cities there may be clubs for lovers of such animals, where they also sell them. Pet stores usually don’t deliver lizards without an order, but the reptile is not considered in short supply either.
Before purchasing, you should determine the gender of your leopard gecko. The fact is that up to 6 months, until puberty occurs, males can live peacefully together. But with the onset of puberty and the desire to mate, a struggle occurs between them, so it is advisable not to acquire 2 males.
The cost of a lizard is from 1500 rubles.
The spotted leopard gecko will be man's best friend if you care for it properly. It is enough just to provide him with the optimal conditions necessary for normal development and health.
Humidity
The gecko terrarium should not be wet. It is enough to keep a drinking bowl with clean water in it, as well as a wet chamber. You should not regularly spray the air from a spray bottle. The humidity level should be within standard room humidity, namely not higher than 40-50%. The drinking bowl is also useful for quenching the gecko's thirst. In some cases, it is enough for these lizards to spray the walls in a damp chamber - they willingly lick droplets of “dew” from the walls, but in any case, a drinking bowl won’t hurt either.
During the period of molting or laying eggs in the terrarium, it is necessary to more responsibly ensure that the wet chamber for the leopard gecko is truly “Wet”. If you don’t know what it is, we’ll tell you: it’s a container with a small hole that imitates a hole, and lined with filler that retains moisture well. This can be coconut substrate, sphagnum moss or regular paper towels. You can buy it at a pet store or make it yourself from a small plastic food container.
Genetic drift (genetic drift)
Genetic drift is most pronounced in those populations in which the number of individuals is not large (see Fig. 2). In such a mini-population, a process of decreasing the percentage of any allele (an allele is a section of a gene responsible for a certain trait) up to its complete loss is very likely. In this case, a predominance of another allele will arise in this group of animals. This phenomenon is called genetic drift.
Consider the example of genetic drift. Albinos occur in nature. Albinism occurs when the alleles associated with the phenotype are mutated. But with such a phenotype (albinism), animals turn out to be weaker physically. Such animals are less likely to survive and reproduce. Therefore, the number of animals with such an allele decreases until it completely disappears from the population. Conversely, those alleles that contribute to survival in natural conditions become fixed in the population. So, for example, the bright color of males, which attracts females, allows such an allele to be “fixed” in the population, because they are popular with females, they will produce more offspring, and such a brightly colored allele becomes predominant in the population. At the same time, the percentage of individuals with a different allele decreases until they disappear completely.
Figure 2. Here we see an isolated population located in one place (a bank), which means that gene flow from other populations is excluded.
Let the red balls represent an allele that negatively affects the metabolism and survival of individuals. Therefore, the presence of this “red” allele has a negative effect on reproduction. The number of animals with this allele is decreasing and fewer and fewer of them take part in reproduction.
Passing from generation to generation (bottle to bottle, from left to right), eventually the red allele is lost, and the blue one becomes fixed in that group.
Many factors contribute to genetic drift in nature, such as fitness, which is associated with different alleles.
In our case, when breeding new morphs of spotted leopard geckos, we artificially select those individuals that carry the characteristics we need: color, brightness, presence or absence of spots, etc. By selecting and crossing such leopard geckos with each other, we “cleanse” the alleles with other characteristics so that in our selection group of animals only individuals carrying the alleles we need remain.
Feeding
As for the leopard gecko's diet, the gecko is completely unpretentious. In its natural habitat, it eats everything it can get - insects, small rodents and even small reptiles.
But at home, the leopard gecko’s diet is slightly limited. Most often, its diet consists of crickets, cockroaches, locusts, mealworms, and soldier fly larvae. In some cases, caterpillars of tobacco hawk moth, zofobas, and naked mice can be offered as delicacies. It is also worth remembering that you should not feed your leopard gecko with insects caught on the street, since all street insects almost always carry parasites and pose a danger to the gecko. In addition, there are arthropods, lepidoptera and larval forms of a number of insects that are simply poisonous. In this case, we are not talking about parasitic diseases in the lizard, but about its life.
It is important to provide the gecko with the correct temperature regime - the quality of digestion depends on how well it warms up. You should also adhere to the recommended feeding regimen. This morning and evening time is the period of greatest activity of the reptile. And the amount of food and frequency of feedings depend on age:
- Very small geckos (up to 1.5 - 2 months) are fed 2-3 medium crickets every day;
- Older ones (from 2 to 4 months) are transferred to feeding 3-4 medium-large crickets every other day;
- Large adolescents (from 4 to 6 months) are fed once every 3 days, that is, two days later on the third, offering 3-5 large crickets;
- Almost adults (from 6 to 10 months) are fed once every 4 days, that is, after 3 days on the fourth, 5-7 large crickets per feeding;
- Fully adult leopard geckos (from 1 year and older) must be fed once every 5-7 days (depending on the condition of the animal), offering 10-15 large crickets at each feeding.
It is worth noting that crickets are indicated only to understand the size of the food item. You cannot feed your leopard gecko with crickets alone; you need to diversify its diet. Crickets can make up a maximum of 70% of the total diet.
During molting, the leopard gecko may refuse to eat; this is normal. Once the old skin is shed and the function of all organs is restored, the gecko will catch up.
Careful selection of geckos for breeding
When selecting geckos for breeding, the breeder must have a clear plan to achieve the desired result, with a thorough study and understanding of the genetics of his pets
It is very important that the geckos he purchases are from a known genetic line. This could be a problem
Due to the craze for leopard geckos around the world and breeding by various hobbyists, the gene pool has become somewhat questionable in recent years.
Finding purebred animals with known genetic material has become much more difficult. Many so-called “purebred” animals may, in fact, be heterozygous, carrying in their genome undesirable genes for a given line, and this may even be the knowledge of the breeder, until, when hatching from eggs, animals of strange colors begin to appear that should not be in this breeding line.
When purchasing animals for breeding a new line, this point must be taken into account, since your project to breed a new morph must be placed on a solid genetic basis. Therefore, obtaining leopard geckos for breeding from reliable sources that can guarantee the genetic purity of the animals is a must.
Founder effect
The founder effect is similar to genetic drift, but on a larger scale. This effect is manifested in a decrease in genetic diversity and the loss of some alleles.
When a new population is established, or in our case we select a group of leopard geckos to become the founders of our new morph, the genetic diversity in that population represents only a small portion of the entire leopard gecko gene pool. Therefore, future generations of your morph will be limited to the number of genes that the selected individuals had at the very beginning. And we, by artificially selecting animals with traits that interest us, contribute to the disappearance of alleles with other traits that are not interesting to us, in order to consolidate those that we need in a given morph.
The founder effect is most pronounced in small populations, where a certain trait can be traced from the very beginning - from the animal from which the breeding of a given morph began - its founder or ancestor.
Figure 3. The magnitude of the founder effect is inversely proportional to the genetic diversity within the newly established population (our ancestral group of spotted leopard geckos).
Let's assume that we start breeding a new morph by taking 8 leopard geckos from 3 different breeders - A, X and Z.
The more of your parent group of spotted leopard geckos that have the required trait, the greater the founder effect you will get and the easier it will be to breed a new morph. Let the little blue squares be alleles (in the figure) responsible for the trait we need in the genotype of animals. The following situations are possible:
- If all 8 animals carry these alleles, this will be a high founder effect.
- If 2 animals out of 8 carry the required genotype - the average founder effect.
- If all allele variants (we are only interested in 1-a), then this is a low founder effect.
We reviewed the basic concepts related to population genetics. How can this help us when breeding our leopard geckos?
Possible problems
In Russia, the popularity of lizards led to the creation of a club for leopard gecko lovers. His activity is not only the popularization of terrarium animals, but also helping hobbyists. Not all cities have qualified veterinarians.
Despite the ease of caring for leopard geckos, it is necessary to remember possible complications
A dangerous disease is rickets. Lack of calcium causes curvature of the paws. They can be an "X" or a "Wheel". When you try to walk, they will tuck in. At the next stage, curvature of the spine occurs, and this entails the death of the individual.
The tail is an indicator of health. It should not be dry, shabby and thin. A dried tip may indicate that the lizard has shed poorly. A special feature of leopard geckos is the ability to drop their tail. They do this at a moment of severe fear or stress. A new tail does not affect the pet's health in any way. But if it grows back, then there are no pimples on it and it is smooth.
Accessories
The leopard gecko is a lizard that is very active and loves to explore its surroundings. At the same time, like any reptile, it needs shelter. Based on this, a wall-mounted “climbing wall” with ledges, niches, and steps should be installed in the terrarium. When kept at home, leopard geckos will happily travel vertically, walk along an artificial gorge and thus satisfy their need for movement.
Ideally, you need to install two shelters in the terrarium - in a warm and cool zone, so that the pet can choose a place to rest.
