What type of geko is this?

[K-TRAIN]

Okay I picked this little beast up from my aunts today, her idea and my idea of the (GEICO) gecko are two completely different things I was thinking specific, she generality. See the below pics.

Anyhow does any ones have an idea what I now have in my charge? It is 9cm / 3.5" long. Definitely not green.

They have it housed in a 10gal tank, with a 60watt incandescent light, crushed walnut shell sub, shallow water dish, and feeding it crix.

Please help me out here, and a very appreciative Thank You. Thaedion :worship: :worship: :worship:

thats definitly a leopard gecko. your setup seems fine. just remove the walnut shell substrate and put in cocobark or something like that. (no sand, it almost killed my leopard gecko) and keep the temps between 80-90 degrees. (75-80 degrees is alright at night.) i would put a dish of mealworms in too. so it always has food.

 

[Thaedion]

Okay I followed all the good advice above...
I chose to put down reptile carpet, Put in a "humidity box" a Tupperware w/ a hole in it's top generously added damp moss, put in a dish of reptile calcium, The temps range 30°-32° C / 85°-90° F, and humidity 30%± 2% and I have a shallow water dish & a nice driftwood hide.

She loved it as far as I can tell. Cruising the tank checking out everything (before she used to just lay under her log). There are little white feet prints emanating from the calcium dish going every where.

Question: My aunt had her for about a 1 yr to 18 months in those poor conditions, my primary concern is the 'no calcium and living on crushed walnuts'. How high would the chances be that she ingested 'shell' and is calcium deficient? Would she ever 'pass' the shells from the body? and if deficient what adverse effects could/will occur?

Again thanks for all your insight and help. Thaedion

 

[AneesasMuse]

I'm not real sure about Leopards, but Cresteds have very obvious calcium reserves in their mouths when they are NOT deficient. Another thing to look for is MBD, or Metabolic Bone Disease, and this presents differently in various animals.... kinking in the tail, "wonky" legs from hips and shoulder sockets being damaged, easily broken jaws when feeding, etc.

I'm sorry I can't be more specific... I've never kept Leopards. I have Cresteds, Gargoyles and Tokays... among other reptiles... but never Leopards. Hopefully someone else will know more..


~Aminah

 

[titus]

Beautiful Leo female (from the pictures), and looks to be in the best of heath, even though it hasn't been in the best of conditions and a partaily regenarated tail. I keep all my leos on a 1/3 clay to sand mix. This creates a hardpack surface but allows burrows to be dug and are feed strictly mealworms with calcium added 2 x a week. Mine haven't had a problem and produce 10-20 young each per year.

 

[Alice]

wow, nice leo - and quite fat. a friend of mine breeds them, and he keeps them on a leaner diet. they get as many crix as they can eat (not as fatty as mealworms) ONCE a week. only the gravid females get an extra treat. they do very well, if he let them the females would be constantly pregnant. like ts (uh, and humans ), they simply live longer if they are not that fat.

 

[Mushroom Spore]

my primary concern is the 'no calcium and living on crushed walnuts'. How high would the chances be that she ingested 'shell' and is calcium deficient? Would she ever 'pass' the shells from the body? and if deficient what adverse effects could/will occur?

http://www.anapsid.org/mbd.html Here's a page on MBD (vitamin deficiency) which, among other things, lists the symptoms. They're pretty obvious, if your leo is getting calcium now and isn't showing signs yet, you're probably in the clear. OH! I just remembered, speaking of MBD, be wary what brand of vitamins you're using. There was a thread on another forum where someone's leos both got MBD despite being given dust. We finally figured out that it was "t-rex leopard gecko dust" which isn't properly balanced at ALL (plus the diet was all mealworms, which are also very high in phosphorus and were screwing up the nutrient balance even further). Rep-cal/Repcal is widely regarded as the best.

As for the walnuts, if she's got shells in her guts, you'll notice. If she's impacted, she'll stop eating, probably become paralyzed in the hind legs, and generally grow very weak and bloated. A vet MIGHT be able to help you enema that out or whatever they do, though with something sharp like walnut shells I don't know how well that would work. Again, though, if she's not showing signs now and eating okay, she's not going to become impacted with you, so you're in the clear. She might have a piece or two in there, but it's obviously not enough to be a problem.

 

[Thaedion]

Again thanks everyone for your help, I'm pretty sure 99.9% that she is in good health then (no obvious signs of any kind like mentioned above). And with all the fine advice I believe she is now in an environment that is suitable to her needs.

Regards Thaedion

 

[aliceinwl]

If a leo has MBD you would start to see bowing in the forearms and in advanced cases the forearms become completely bent and they basically walk on their elbows. Your leo doesn't have any of these skeletal deformities so odds are she's healthy. I agree your new set-up sounds great.

In terms of color morph, she looks more like a blizzard than a patternless to me. Did your aunt get her as a baby? Baby patternless leos have a splotched pattern that completely disappears as they age, blizzards have no pattern at hatching. As adults patternless and bannana / yellow blizzards can look pretty similar so knowing the appearance at hatching can be really helpful. From the pics, yours seems to be predominantly gray which is more typical coloration for a blizzard than a patternless. I have a lot of both blizzards and patternless and my first though was blizzard when I saw yours.

I've attached a pic of three of my blizzards (note that some blizzards will have more yellow coloration than mine) and a dark patternless for comparison.

-Alice