Species
Common Name: Leopard Gecko (Common Leopard Gecko)
Scientific
Name: Eublepharis macularius
Adult Size:
9-12in (25-30cm) including tail.
Captive Life
Span: 15-20+ years (30+ is possible but unlikely)
Data for
this species in the wild
Natural
Distribution: India, Pakistan, Nepal, Iran, Afghanistan
Habitat Type:
Open Scrub, Rocky Foothills, Grassland, Arid Forest, and Desert Edges
Activity
Pattern: Crepuscular, most active at Dawn and Dusk (or technically they are
“Cathemeral” meaning they have no fixed activity pattern)
Activity
Zone: Terrestrial, they live on the ground.
Summer
Temperature Range: Over 30c, regularly over 40c+ during the day
Winter
Temperature Range: 12-16c and occasionally down to 10c at night
Wild Diet:
Insectivorous by nature, dietary studies have shown much of their wild diet
contains spiders and scorpions along with Coleoptra (Beetles), they would also predate
smaller vertebrates e.g. smaller lizards if the opportunity presented itself.
Keeping them
as Pets – The Basics
Captive
Housing Minimum Size: 24in x 18in x 18in (60cm x 45cm x 45cm) has been the
common standard for years but as our knowledge and care standards have improved,
we would suggest a minimum size of 36in x 18in x 18in (90cm x 45cm x 45cm) for
an adult. Many people are now opting for larger enclosures at 48in x 18in x in(120cm
x 45cm x 45cm) or more. Whilst you can also give them additional height, do
consider that they lack the adhesive toe pads characteristic of many geckos so
will need lots of sturdy logs, rocks and bark stacked up to be able to make use
of any extra height that is provided.
Cage
Material Construction: Wood, Melamine or PVC works best for maintaining the
high temperatures required. Glass can be used but consider that you will almost
certainly need to increase the strength of your heat source to counteract the
reduced thermal insulation properties of glass when compared to wood or
melamine.
Social
Structure: Males are highly territorial and will potentially fight to the
death, there should never be more than 1 male in an enclosure. Often multiple
females can be kept together if the enclosure size is large enough. If housing
multiple females make sure to monitor feeding to make sure they all get
adequate food and provide plenty of extra hiding places so that they are not
forced to spend time together should they prefer not to. It is therefore often
simpler and easier to house them individually.
Daytime
Hotspot / Basking Temperature: 32c
Daytime
Ambient Temperatures: 24c-28c
Nighttime
Ambient Temperatures: 16-20c
Preferred
Heat source: 80w Deep Heat projector controlled by a dimming thermostat. Heat
mats can be used in smaller enclosures for rearing youngsters but they often
lack sufficient power for adult sized enclosures. Whichever heat source you use
they must always be used in conjunction with an appropriate thermostat to
regulate the temperature.
UVB
Requirement Ferguson Zone: Zone 1 – Crepuscular or Shade Dweller
Preferred
UVB Source: Arcadia 8w 7% “shade dweller Pro T5” or Arcadia 14w 2.5% “Shade
dweller Max Pro T5”, a 6% High Output Pro T5 can be used in taller enclosures.
The UVB bulb should illuminate 50-75% of enclosure length
Humidity
Requirement: Leopard geckos naturally live in a variety of habitats and
while these are all mostly quite dry environments, the localised microhabitats
where leopard geckos actually live tend to be quite humid (during the day they
would shelter in rock crevices or under fallen logs etc). Therefore, its
important that when you are keeping a leopard gecko in a predominantly dry
environment you still provide an area of localised high humidity such as a cave
filled with damp sphagnum moss. Your leopard gecko will need this area of high
humidity to ensure that it sheds its skin properly. It may often also choose to
stay in this hide at other times as well. The “moss hide” should be positioned
at the cool end of the enclosure to mimic the high humidity and lower
temperatures that would be found in deep rock crevices in the wild.
Preferred
Humidity Source: Cave at the cool end filled with damp moss or coir.
Water
Requirements: Provide a small bowl of fresh water, they don’t drink
frequently though.
Substrate:
Loose sandy soil, the most popular premix is Pro Rep Leo Life, but other
popular substrates are Arcadia Earth Mix Arid and Desert Sand.
Recommended
Décor: Branches, grapevine, bark, rocks, slate & bamboo roots etc for a
naturalistic look. They will also make good use of resin hides and as a minimum
they should have at least one hide at the hot end and one hide filled with damp
moss at the cool end. From experience, the more hiding places you provide your
gecko the more secure they feel within their environment. Leopard Geckos are more
active and visible when living in a “cluttered” environment with lots of hiding
places and not much open space. You can use artificial hanging plants or freestanding
ones on a base to further decorate their enclosure and if you use resin
ornaments like skulls, they will often use these as simply another hiding
space. You can use live plants in with them, should you choose, but do consider
that plants which are more tolerant to higher temperatures and have lower water
requirements will do better. Plants such as Sansevieria, Aloes, Hawothia and
other succulents will all survive in a leopard gecko enclosure.
Captive Diet:
Assorted insects including crickets, locusts, cockroaches, and occasional worms
such as mealworms, calci worms, silk worms and wax worms. You can read our
guide to feeding insectivorous lizards for more information. Some old and
outdated care guides will suggest that they can live on a diet of exclusively mealworms,
this is not true if you want them to have a long and healthy life. A diet of only
mealworms tends to promote obesity and can cause a range of health
complications and will inevitably lead to a much shorter lifespan. Again, some
old care guides suggest that leopard geckos may take a defrosted pinkie mouse
as a treat, there is really no need for this, but if you want to, just make
sure it is infrequent as again feeding them treats like this regularly will
lead to obesity. We have also seen some very old care guides from the 1990’s
which suggest leopard geckos will eat fruit, they won’t, we have tried many
times to offer them different fruits and vegetables to see if they will take
it, they don’t.
Feeding
Frequency: For young Leopard Geckos up to 6 months old we would offer
insects daily, for juvenile/subadult animals (6-12 months) we would feed
insects 4-5 days a week. For animals over 12 months old they should have
finished most of their growth, from this point we would only offer insects 3
times per week. They do not need to eat every day as an adult. During the
winter their appetite may decrease and they may eat slightly more in the summer
months
Supplementation:
Assuming you are using a good quality UVB source such as the Arcadia
Shadedweller Pro T5 you will not need to use a supplement with added Dietary
Vitamin D3 on every feed. Periodically (approximately once per fortnight for
youngsters and once per month for adults), we will dust their food with Arcadia
Revitalise D3 which contains low levels of preformed D3.
As a daily
calcium supplement, we tend to use Arcadia Ca or our favourite one to use is
Arcadia EarthPro A as this is a calcium balancer with added trace minerals and
carotenoids but without any synthetic preformed vitamins. This should be dusted
onto their insects every feed and you can leave a small dish or bottle cap of
calcium powder in their enclosure which they will sometimes go and lick or eat.
Cleaning:
Leopard Geckos are clean animals, they will often choose one specific area of
their enclosure to use as a toilet, this may be one corner of the tank or under
a specific hide. They need their enclosure spot cleaning daily, so remove
uneaten food such as any dead crickets along with any bodily waste from their
toilet area. This can be easy to do using a sand sieve or can also be done by
hand. They should have a full substrate change every 6-8 weeks or sooner if you
feel they are a particularly messy individual. When you perform a substrate
change you should also disinfect the entire enclosure and all furnishings using
a reptile safe disinfectant, our preferred ones to use are either the vet ark
Ark-Klens or F10 reptile disinfectant.
Handling
Suitability: Good, with regular short handling sessions they will soon become
tame and will happily sit in your hand or crawl over you without getting
stressed.
Recommended
Starter Kit: Click here for a link to our recommended starter kit.
Advancing
your care:
Simple ways to
advance your care can include opting for a larger environment for your Leopard
Gecko specifically in terms of length or floor area. Ensuring regular variety
to their diet is also a simple step that is easily achievable for most keepers.
You can also use some of the most cutting-edge heating and lighting equipment.
The Microclimate Evo 2, Evo 3 and Evo Connected range of thermostats all have
the capability to program varying temperatures throughout the day to mimic
early morning temperatures, heat of the day and late evening temperatures with
fully customisable options. This can be especially good for species like leopard
geckos which are most active at dawn and dusk, you can provide these varying
temperatures by using these cutting-edge thermostats. By using the Arcadia
LumenIZE range of UVB fixtures you can also program your lighting to simulate
dawn and dusk to provide a much more natural range of UVB exposure throughout
the day. We have seen increased activity from our leopard geckos by using the
LumenIZE light fittings as it provides much more natural lighting conditions
for them. Another often overlooked factor is the general brightness inside the
enclosure and although we may think of the UVB bulbs as being quite bright,
they are nothing when compared to natural sunlight, so it is now a
well-recognised method to improve the environment for lots of species of
reptile to add LED fittings as well as the UVB just to increase the general
luminosity (brightness) within the environment. Again, these are available in
the Arcadia LumenIZE range so that they can have variable levels of brightness
to simulate dawn and dusk.
Environmental
enrichment is another area that you can always improve, this means adding
different furnishings regularly and using objects of different textures and
materials to encourage your Leopard Gecko to investigate their environment.
This can be as simple as rotating through different cage furnishings or adding
things like piles of dried leaves for them to investigate, the options for this
are only as limited as your imagination.
Additional
Information:
Leopard geckos
have been kept as pets since at least the 1960’s and they were one of the first
pet species of lizard to be regularly kept indoors under artificial conditions
(people have kept European species of lizard as pets in outdoor enclosures since
the 1700’s). Their ongoing charm and relative ease of care combined with their
comparatively small size means that to this day they remain one of the most
popular pet reptiles globally.
Although we
think of leopard geckos as all being the same there are 5 different subspecies
which occur in different parts of their natural range. As far as “pet shop
leopard geckos” go, they are not a specific subspecies but more of a crossbreed
of multiple different subspecies that have all been interbred for the last few
decades, possibly even with some mixed in genetics from other closely related
Eubelpharis species which also look very similar. This mixture of genetics is
one of the reasons for the slight variability in leopard geckos when it comes
to adult size differences.
We can’t talk
about leopard geckos without mentioning all the different colours and patterns
that are available, these are called morphs. A “morph” simply means a visual
colour or pattern that is different to the normal or wild type appearance. Leopard
geckos have been bred to enhance a wide variety of colour morphs, probably more
than any other lizard in captivity. Many leopard gecko morphs are caused by recessive
genes meaning both parents must carry at least 1 copy of the gene for it to be passed
on and expressed visually in the offspring. Examples of recessive genes would
be the Albino gene (of which there are many different types of albinos) or the
Blizzard gene (a patternless pale grey/white gecko). Other morphs are line bred;
this means there is no single specific gene responsible for the outward
appearance to the gecko’s morph but rather that people have bred successive generations
of individuals together that look similar, to enhance the visual appearance
they want. Examples of this would be the “Black Night” morph where through
repeatedly breeding the darkest coloured individuals together to enhance the
amount of melanin (dark pigment) has resulted in an almost entirely black
leopard gecko. Another line bred morph and probably the most popular one we breed
is the Tangerine morph where they have been line bred for many generations to
change the background colour from yellow to orange, often with a reduction in
the number of spots. People have now also taken many of these basic starting
colour morphs and bred them together to produce what we would call combination
or “combo” morphs, an example would be an “albino super snow leopard gecko”
which is a combination of the albino and Mack snow traits.
It is worth
noting that some leopard gecko morphs are associated with serious health complications
as a by product of their morph. We strongly suggest against keeping or breeding
any morph or combination morph with these known genetic issues, morphs with
issues include the “enigma morph”, “white and yellow morph” and “lemon frost
morph” to name just a few.
Leopard geckos
have always been popular as they are a hardy species and well suited to
beginner keepers. Some older care guides stated that the use of a UVB light was
not essential with leopard geckos, modern care standards dictate that they are
essential. Thankfully with the routine use of a UVB light we rarely see cases
of “MBD” metabolic bone disease (similar to rickets in people) which was unfortunately
all to common in leopard geckos in the past. The most common health complaints
that we encounter now are obesity from people either overfeeding or feeding too
many fatty treat items or shedding issues due to inadequate provision of a humid
hide. Both are easily rectified by the keeper adjusting their care accordingly.
With a suitable environment and appropriate feeding, they are a very rewarding
pet to keep.
While leopard
geckos are probably the best known and most popular pet species out of all the
terrestrial geckos its worth a quick mention for other species that may also be
equally suitable to first time keepers but perhaps less well known. These
include, Australian barking geckos and knob tailed geckos, these are almost
identical in care requirements but stay a little smaller. Fat tailed geckos and
Central American banded geckos are similar in care but with higher humidity requirements.
And cave geckos are similar in care but with both higher humidity and lower
temperature requirements.