Cannibalism in leopard geckos

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Hilde

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Cannibalism in leopard geckos isn't unusual. Housing unequal sized geckos together could spell disaster, even if they're all well fed.

Leopard geckos are known to eat smaller lizards, maybe not often, but they will occasionally take advantage of an opportunity to change the menu a bit.

This link goes to a cached Google copy of a .PDF, you don't have to download it, just view it online.
If you're the least bit squeamish, don't look at the pictures on page #2, reading the text on page #1 will give you the full idea of what can happen.

http://www.herpetologynotes.seh-her...al_Herpetology_Notes_Volume4_pages211-212.pdf
 

bud1988

New member
Man that is pretty radical, was that a captive Leo case?
-couldn't read the whole article (phone doesn't like thoes files)
 

Piranha72

New member
Thanks for posting this, it was interesting information. I didn't know they were cannabalistic, you learn something new everyday. Just goes to show it isn't a good idea to keep them together, so many things could potentially go wrong.
 

Saskia

New member
This is very very interesting, all sentiment apart, I knew they were cannibals, but I must say that the prey leo from this study is very large in comparison to his predator leo.....
Even with hatchlings the same size it is common to see eaten tail-tips, it is always best to house separately... however, in Ron tremper´s book "The Herpetoculture of Leopard Geckos" he mentions that it is possible to house a "comunity" of leos together as long as enough food and hides are provided, He put several leo´s together, and "let them be" they laid eggs, which were not incubated in an incubator, just left there, they hatched and babies lived along with the adults,. he reported a couple tail loses, bu I believe no dead hatchlings.... I don´t have the book right in my hands now, but I have read it a couple times, he explqains the viv is quite large and they have all natiralistic type of enclosure, many many hides and plenty of food, in the link here you can see the predator has a bit of a skinny tail, so, he might have been very hungry... I don´t know, Ron Tremper is not a breeder I am fond of, but he has been dealing with leos for over 32 years, so, he has experience (although he states to feed them exclusively on mealworms... so, that is just an example of poor life conditions), but maybe a subject to debate....
 

Saskia

New member
I will dare to post this picture, for educational purposes, this is a gecko I rescued, this happened the very same day I rescued her:
P1011622.jpg

The prey is not a leo, it is a Hemidactylus (a common house gecko), but I doubt that the "predator" would make a difference between any smaller gecko..... It was too late for him, I didn´t have the time to take him out of there where he fell unfortunately in front of a very hungry leo, when I realized there was nothing I could do, I just took a crapy phone that was next to me and barely had time to take this picture...

BOTTOM LINE: DO NOT house different sized geckos together!! No matter if they are close to the same size, if they go hungry they do not measure themselves
 
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