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Photos of our mourning geckos
Mourning Geckos (Lepidodactylus lugubris) Care Sheet
These geckos are rumored to have received their common name from the natives of their home range hearing the calls and believing that they were mourning their lost male mates. Mourning geckos are parthenogenetic, which means the females essentially clone themselves when they lay eggs. So be aware that if you purchase any you will get babies.
The most important thing with this species is ESCAPE PROOF CAGES. They are very small, as adults they are about 3 inches long and very slender so if there are cord holes or if the mesh has wide holes they can escape. We found out that our hole plugs had come out when we saw mourning geckos on our walls. You can plug the cord holes in the back of the Exo Terra tanks by using damp paper towels and letting them dry in the hole or covering the holes up with something.
These are colony lizards so please purchase more than one when you purchase unless you already have some at home. They interact, are very social with each other, have body language and vocalizations that make them a very delightful animal to observe and learn about. Even though they are small you want to give them room to move as they are very energetic creatures. We have 7 adults in an 18x18x24 Exo Terra Tank. You can put 3 or 4 in the 12x12x18 Exo Terra or something of similar dimensions. They are aboreal and need little places to hide. They are nocturnal, in captivity they can be more active during they day than they would be in the wild. They like lots of places to hide and run about on so please provide plenty of trees with hollows, holes and plants. They will squabble over prime spots so the more spots to hang out on the better.
Food: We give ours small crickets, phoenix worms, mealwoms (smaller ones) and baby roaches and we have found out that they like the Crested Gecko diet. We put a capful in the tank along with a water dish and they will go drink the CGD on their own accord. We do also dust our insects every third feeding with Repcal and once a week with Reptivite ( a multivitamin powder for reptiles). We feed them daily as they have very high metabolisms. They get live insects 4 times a week and Crested Gecko Diet is always in the tank. If they are not fed well they will eat their eggs.
Humidity: We mist ours about 3 times a day as we are in AZ, they prefer it humid. We keep ours around 60%.
Handling: You can handle them but you have to be VERY gentle. They are small and their skin will tear if handled too roughly. The best advice to start out with is to handle them in their tank until you get used to how fast and delicate they are. That way if one jumps you won't be chasing it across the floor.
Temperature and substrate: Temp should be above 70 degrees no more than 82 degrees and the substrate should be something along the lines of Repti Bed, Peat moss etc. You want something that retains moisture well.
Quirks: These geckos will eat their eggs from time to time and hatchlings if given the chance so when (not if) your gecko lays eggs do not panic if you see them eating an egg. However watch for hatchlings after about 60 days and remove hatchlings as soon as you see them. They will start laying eggs around 8-10 months old. The geckos stick their eggs to the side of the tank. We do not remove them as we have noticed that once the females all got on the same cycle of laying eggs they stopped eating the eggs as often. Plus they usually lay the eggs in the hardest spots to get to.
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