I'm Alive!

[Silvershark]

Just letting ya'll know that I'M ALIVE!  Just been spending little time posting on forums because I now have FIVE BABY GECKOS!  Sooooo cool!  I was shaking like anything when I found my first hatchling, such an amazing experience and now I have five little ones with more on the way!

[Gatorman]

Very Cool post many pictures  ;D

[Silvershark]

Here's my babies...

First hatchling I found, Shadow:

And the little poser, Arizona!

(the coin is a British 5p, just a bit bigger than a US dime)

And my 3rd hatchling, Kalahari

These three are the only ones I'm keeping, the others will all be going to new homes.  Probably won't make much out of selling them though, the way things are going I don't even think I'll get back feeding costs from them all!

[Gatorman]

Those are sooo cute  ;D

[Harry Pristis]

Congratulations on the hatch of your geckos!! What is the species?

I understand the thrill of that hatch because for many years I was involved in breeding reptiles--pythons, mostly--including some leopard geckos.

I don't keep any reptiles now, but I do have some house geckos, Hemidactylus sp., which have lived on the exterior of my house for about twenty years. (This is possible here in Florida.) Occasionally, a baby will get into the house, and I have to catch it to put it outside.

This is one such baby that I had to move outside. It's about two inches long. The adults are three-to-four inches.

------------Harry Pristis

[Silvershark]

They're Stenodactylus sthenodactylus - a ground-dwelling desert species from North Africa and the Middle East

AND I now have six hatchlings!  New one emerged today!

[worthy 55]

Cool looking little critters, love those big eyes!!!! 8) 8)

[tomclark]

Congratulations!

We have these Mediterranean Sand Geckos all over the inside and outside of the house.  They lay eggs in the walls and behind light switch covers.  Only come out at night.  We don't mind them at all in the house.  We have another kind of gecko that is much larger and darker that is more rare that we see occasionally.  In the daytime we have HUNDREDS of regular Cuban Anoles in the yard.

Florida:

Geckos

Yellow Headed Gecko Gonatodes albogularis ~INTRODUCED

Indo-Pacific Gecko Hemidactylus garnoti ~INTRODUCED

Mediterranean Gecko Hemidactylus turcicus ~INTRODUCED

Ocellated Gecko Sphaerodactylus argus ~INTRODUCED

Ashy Gecko Sphaerodactylus elegans ~INTRODUCED

Florida Reef Gecko Sphaerodactylus notatus notatus

Iguanids

Green Anole Anolis carolinensis

Crested Anole Anolis cristatellus ~INTRODUCED

Large-Headed Anolis cybotes ~INTRODUCED

Florida Bark Anole Anolis distichus floridanus

Green Bark Anole Anolis distichus dominicensis ~INTRODUCED

Knight Anole Anolis equestris ~INTRODUCED

Cuban Brown Anole Anolis sagrei sagrei ~INTRODUCED

Bahaman Brown Anole Anolis sagrei ordinatus ~INTRODUCED

Green Iguana Iguana iguana ~INTRODUCED

Northern Curly-tailed Lizard Leiocephalus carinatus armouri ~INTRODUCED

Southern Fence Lizard Sceloporus undulatus undulatus

Florida Scrub Lizard Sceloporus woodi ~INTRODUCED

[Harry Pristis]

That's too cool, Tom!! I've never tried to feed a free-ranging anole -- I imagined I could never get close enough. The Mediterranean house gecko baby that I posted DID take a tiny moth from forceps, though -- probably its first meal just moments before I took its picture.

I wonder what your other gecko is. I have a lot of Bahamian brown anoles (Anolis sagrei image below) around here, I guess they're everywhere in Florida. I see a few native Carolina anoles, too. Apparently, the two anoles occupy slightly different niches. The brown seems to be more terrestrial than the Carolina.

I am very fond of my house geckos, but this has been a bad year for them. I usually can see 10 or 12 of them on my front patio (rather, OVER my front patio) any evening. This year, the max I have seen is five.

I can't figure out what is hunting them, unless it was that young raccoon earlier this summer. I think my neighbor put an end to that raccoon's depredations a couple of weeks ago. I know that cats will hunt lizards of all sorts, but the geckos never seemed to be bothered.

I may need some new genes for the depleted population here, Tom. I can trade you some fossils.

Thanks for posting the pix!

--------Harry Pristis