Hi all

[paulvern]

Hi everyone, it's Paolo from Italy here. It's a long time I registered to the forum but I wrote just one post then... I forgot about it. Sorry. I've been in South Africa in 2003 and enjoyed its incredible population of wild reptiles. Anyway during the last weekend I bought two very nice Gechoes that were sold to me as Chondrodactylus bibronii from South Africa. I actually think they are far more common C. turneri but I love them anyway. I did some not too pretty photos of them and I've been searching for care sheets since then but the most informations I found were on this forum. So, I would be very happy if some of you could share his/her knowledge about Chondrodactylus sp. with me.

BTW I breed several species of cockroaches and some mantids along with an interesting little mammal that always call me 'father'

Kind regards,
Paolo.

[Sico]

Stunning geckos! They make great captive specimens, as long as they have enough to eat, and they can eat pretty large stuff too. I have always found them wild on sandy substrate, under logs, or in holes in the ground (old termite mounds). Last time I found lots of them was in Mozambique http://sareptiles.co.za/forum/viewtopic.php?f=75&t=32049, there are three threads along a similar topic (Tete, I-III).

[paulvern]

I read somewhere that they bask under the basking spot light during the day so I supposed they do the same in nature, but I've not seen them basking at all. Is that common in nature? (I've never heard that about nocturnal geckos). I give them plenty of cockroaches (and quite a nice one as they prefer Gyna caffrorum) and meal worms. I use calcium dust always and calcium dust +D3 vitamin once a week.
Anyway what's the word for Gecko? Gecko--Geckoes or Gecho--Gechoes? I can find both by googling them.
Stunning photos you did in Mozambique!
Thanks for the reply.

[Sico]

We Use Gecko. Never seen it spelt differently, but I presume that European languages may have variations. As far as I know they are fully nocturnal geckos, I only found them during the day when we disturbed them during construction. At night they were quite plentiful on the trees and so on. Ones I had in captivity also never basked, but they do like to be quite warm generally. A heat pad under their enclosure shoud be sufficient. The day time temps where I found them in Mozambique range from 27 (winter) to 48 (summer) C, with night time temps at worst dropping to around 16 C, and fairly dry environments, with a heavy rainfall season from October-January (summer).

[paulvern]

Thank you for the advices. Now they are at 28°C 12 hours a day and 20°C during the night. I suppose I will need to raise the day temperature a little and they won't need much humidity at all. Let's see what will happen. Any idea on how to sex them? I read something about white points somewhere but I can't understand where to look for them.
Any idea from what they take the calcium in nature? I never understood why captive bred geckoes need always calcium powder and D3 vitamin while in nature they can't easily find calcium powder at all.
Thank you for the correct spelling. I suppose Gechoes is used incorrectly by people like me whose mother tongue is not English

[Sico]

Your temps should be fine for them as is. If they are active and eating I wouldn't stress about it much. I have no idea where they would get calcium from in nature, perhaps from eating molluscs? I presume in captivity the assumption is made that they do not get the required Vit D3 synthesis brought on by natural light and thus they need supplements. When I kept a lot of reptiles like geckos/lizards/chelonians I very seldom gave them supplements, just a nice varied diet, which included a lot of pink mice/rats so they got enough calcium from those.

[paulvern]

Here it is a macro shot of back and lateral (not too lateral) body scales. I really don't understand if this is a bibronii or a turneri. It seems to me something in between...