Caresheet leopard gecko Inhoud: General information External Morphs / Color phases The enclosrue The substrate Feeding Heating / Lighting Hiding places Decoration Breeding lopard geckos genetics at leopard geckos General information: Name: Latin name: distribution area: Size: Age: Leopard gecko Eublepharis Macularius From East-Iran through Afghanistan and Pakistan to Northwest-India, in half-dry places The leopard gecko becomes 20 to 25 centimeters large Average about 15 years This is Cera, one of our normal phase females, born on May 4th, 2005. External The skin on the back of a leopard gecko can best be described as having a lot of warts. They aren’t warts, but just little bumps and the skin feels quite soft. They can possible reach up to 25 centimeters long under optimal circumstances. Here however we also have females who absolutely will not reach that length, so it is just an indication. The tail seems to be built up in segments. They can throw off their tail at each segment, whereas a new tail will re-grow. The new tail will seldom look as nicely as the original tail. Generally the regenerated tail looks like a sphere. This is in itself not very detrimental for the gecko himself, but regeneration costs a lot of energy and the thrown off tail ensures more risk on infection. Therefore separate a gecko with a thrown off tail on kitchen role and make sure that he/she isn’t stressed too much and that he/she has enough food available. This is important because many reserves are lost with the thrown off part of the tail (best is to provide the leopard gecko with a dish with mealworms because crickets provide more stress). A leopard gecko stores fat reserves in its tail. A good filled tail is not a bad sign, but a sign that the animal is doing well and he/she is ready for the winter rest instead. This is the regenerated tail of Lilo, she already had a regenerated tail when we bought her. Sexing of leopard geckos. Sexing leopard geckos is not very difficult, but you must wait until the animals are large enough to be able to see it. Sometimes we can already determine the sex after about 8 weeks, but it becomes more clearly at 3 months and with 6 months it’s very easy to see. Easiest to see are the men. They have two balls at the base of the tail where females don’t have that. Also men have larger pre-anal pores, which look like dark spots and form a "V". These however will not become visible until they have grown a lot bigger and therefore in the beginning we especially look for the balls. The sex can roughly be stipulated by the way of incubating, but more about that in the breeding section of this care sheet. Pre anal pores and balls at the beginning of the tail from a leopard gecko male. Less visible pre anal pores and no balls at the beginning of the tail from a leopard gecko female. Side aspect of a leopard gecko male with balls. Side aspect of a leopard gecko female where no balls are visible at the beginning of the tail. Here below you can find a list with almost every morph/color phase of the leopard gecko that can be found these days. up Morphs / Color phases In the list below you can find all the morphs of the leopard gecko with a small explanation included such as I understood from other people who know more about morphs than I do. I will add photos of the morphs. Press on the morph name to watch a photograph of the morph. Normal: As mentioned this is the natural form of the leopard gecko. The base color of adults is light yellow with black spots and the young geckos are yellow with black saddles instead of spots. On the photograph you can see our normal phase male Yugi. Albino: the base color of an albino is yellow with pink saddles / dots. Pay attention to the fact that there are three different lines of albinos, which have been discovered by different people. These are not compatible. In other words, when crossed with each other, they would only produce normal phase leopard geckos (heterozygous for both albino forms used). Now I will sum up all three albinos lines. Tremper albino: The tremper albino, discovered by Ron Tremper, is the most common albino form in the Netherlands. It is an albino with clear saddles, also in adult size and a pink color over the yellow base color. On the photograph you can see our young tremper albino Cirith. Bell albino: The bell albino, grown by mark Bell, is still very rare in the Netherlands. This is because there are few people with a couple of adult bell-albino’s here. The bell albinos are different from the tremper albinos, because the pink color spots are light in the middle and more dark pink (almost red) at the edges. The bell albinos also have clear saddles when they are adults. On the photograph the Bell albino of Arjen de Jonge. Rainwater albino: This albino is also called Las Vegas albino. I personally like the first name better. This albino type is also rarely seen in the Netherlands. It is an albino where as I see it the pattern fades until it is just visible but only very little. The saddles of this albino form are present less clearly. They are there however. The head pattern differs from the other albino types. It always looks to me like the real pattern of a leopard or cheetah. The rainwater albino on the photograph is our rainwater albino male Rain. Chocolat albino: Chocolate albinos can be found with every albino type. A chocolate albino however has a more dark (brown) pattern color instead of pink. It can be even quite dark brown but the color is lighter than the normal black pigment. The chocolate albino on the photograph is from RingootKevin. The chocolate colors are possible a result of low incubation temperatures according to Ron Tremper. High Yellow: High Yellow is a form that also occurs in the wild. The base color is very yellow, frequently there are lesser spots then a normal phase gecko would have, as result of which the yellow color is clearer to see. They hardly have any dots on the rear legs. For the rest they look a lot like the normal phase leopard gecko. As an example we took a picture of our high yellow female Spirit. Hypo: Hypo is a phase from which in the course of time by selective breeding the pattern has been reduced partially. Through all those years always the animals with the lightest colors (with less pattern) were crossed with each other and so the hypos have been produced. Today there are so many hypos available that it is easy to produce hypos just by crossing one hypo with another. Generally the base color is yellow. Hypos still have got some spots left on the back but there is a clear reduction of pattern. Hypos also haven’t got any spots on the rear legs. There are undoubtedly many hypos more beautiful than our Djinn, but she is a typical hypo so we took her photograph for example. Super hypo: The super hypo goes a step further then the hypo. A super hypo hasn’t got any spots left on the back. Absolutely no black spots or pattern may be found on the back at all to call a leopard gecko a super hypo. Spots or pattern can still be present on the head and tail. On the photograph our Kaya for example. When the pattern on the head is also gone, the gecko is called “baldy” in addition. For example a “super hypo baldy”. Hybino: A Hybino is a hypo-albino. Therefore an albino with reduced pattern. The grade of pattern reduction can vary. There are hybinos who still have many dots but there are also hybinos, which almost reach the super hybino form, almost without any spots on the back, such as in the case of my male hybino Gizmo. The male on the photograph is of RingootKevin. Super hybino: Just like a super hypo a super hybino doesn’t have any spots on the back. They can still have spots on the head or the tail. On the photograph you can see our young super hybino Angel who has been sold. Tangerine: A leopard gecko that has tangerine in his phase name should be really orange. In my eyes that orange should be very clearly to see and when there are doubts it shouldn’t be called tangerine. There are many combinations with this morph like hypo tangerine, super hypo tangerine, tangerine albino etc. As an example: our tangerine hybino Arwen. Sunglow: A sunglow can also be called a tangerine super hybino baldy. That means a super hybino without pattern on the head and instead of a yellow base color they have an orange color. I like this beautiful morph very much. On the photograph the sunglow male of Tom. Patternless: This animal was originally called leucist. I do not use the term leucist however, because misunderstandings can arise between the patternless and the blizzard. As the name of this animal already indicates, this animal has no pattern when they are adult. Frequently patternless leopard geckos have a bit gray or brown coloration, but more and more yellow patternless leopard geckos can be found today. Funny about patternless leopard geckos is that they are born with a spotted pattern that fades in the first months until it is completely gone. Patternless is a recessive morph. To get patternless offspring, both father and mother need to pass on the patternless gene (more about this in the genetics part of this care sheet). The patternless on the photograph is from Judith. It still has some 'baby pattern' remaining. Blizzard: As adult the blizzard looks very lot like a patternless. They haven’t got pattern on the complete body either. The body color is usually gray but can vary enormous from white and gray to brown even during a day. The blizzard is born completely without pattern with a yellow color on the back and a gray color on the head and tail. As the blizzards grows the yellow on his back fades until the color is the same al over his body. Blizzard is recessive morph. To get blizzard offspring, both father and mother need to pass on the blizzard gene (more about this in the genetics part of this care sheet). The blizzard on the photograph is a blizzard that we bought from Ray Hines, which we have sold because it turned out to be a male. Banana blizzard: The banana blizzard is a leopard gecko with both the patternless and blizzard genes. You can’t get a banana blizzard however just by crossing a patternless male and a blizzard female, because both morphs are recessive (see genetics part). Anyway, banana blizzards seem just like a normal blizzard with the difference that the yellow color on the back remains even when the banana blizzard is mature. That directly explains the name banana blizzard. On the photograph one of our banana blizzards. According to Ron tremper there are also banana blizzard at which the yellow color is a result of selective breeding. This is very important to know, because it can be of impact on the crosses you make. These selective bred banana blizzards don’ t poses the patternless genes! Patternless albino: A Patternless albino is a combined morph namely patternless and albino. When they are young you can recognize them in the same way as a patternless from the yellow body color with a spotted pattern on the back. The tail and head are white(r) and the eyes are that of an albino namely light (white/pink). Remember that there are three albino types. All of them can be combined with patternless and the offspring looks very lot alike, but the three different patternless albino types also can’t be combined just like the albinos themselves! On the photograph our patternless albino female Holly, who is actually a rainwater patternless albino. Blazing blizzard: A real white blizzard, possible with red eyes. Sometimes these animals have a pink glow over their body. Blazing blizzards are combined out of the blizzard and albino morphs and therefore the different albino types also apply to them. On the photograph our (tremper) blazing blizzard male from the USA. Jungle: A jungle phase leopard gecko (in fact jungle pattern) often has the colors of a normal phase leopard gecko, but the pattern is differently. Instead of the usual saddles the pattern is randomly. A real jungle also has a random pattern on the tail. Many normal phase geckos have a random pattern on the body and a standard pattern with saddles on the tail. That is called aberrant. Jungle is one of the easiest phases to recognize at young geckos. Of course there are also jungle albinos (jungle and albino phase combined) and on the example photograph you can see our jungle albino Willow. Lavender: The Lavender phase is a bit difficult to explain. It looks like a normal phase but instead of a dark base color on the places where the black saddles used to be, they have got a light purple (lavender like) color. The yellow color is also lighter. We haven’t seen many real lavender leopard geckos and they are difficult to recognize. On the photograph you can see one of our hatchlings that looked very lot like a lavender leopard gecko at the time when the picture was taken. Stripe: One of my favorite morphs. The name stripe (can occur combined with almost every other phase of leopard gecko, so also with the normal phase) speaks for itself. Striped leopard geckos have a stripe that starts in the neck and runs over the back completely to the end of the tail. Some leopard gecko phases combined with stripe are red stripe, red racing stripe, reversed stripe, albino stripe, reversed stripe albino. On the photograph our reversed stripe albino from the USA. Reverse means that instead of a light stripe in the middle and a dark color on the sides it has a dark stripe in the middle and a light color on the sides. Carrot head: The name of this morph will probably tell enough. This phase is recognizable by its orange (to red) color of the pattern on its head. As example the carrot head hybino from RingootKevin. Carrot tail: Carrot tails have an orange color on the tail. The orange color always begins at the base of the tail. Many morphs have some orange on the tail, but a real carrot tail has at least 30 to 35% of the tail covered with orange without being interrupted by any dark dots. Animals who have less orange on the tail are frequently indicated with a percentage, such as my hybino leopard gecko male, which has about 10% carrot tail (10% of his tail is covered with orange). On the photograph: Kaya. Snow: The snow leopard gecko resembles the normal phase leopard gecko very much, but with a lighter yellow to white basis color instead of yellow. Grade a + snows absolutely have no yellow color anymore, but only white. B grade snows have a very light yellow color and a C grade is just a little bit lighter yellow than normal phase leopard geckos. We have a splendid snow photograph from Steve Sykes as example, click here to go to his website!. Mack (Super) Snow: The Mack Snow or Mack super snow is a different color phase than the normal snow. The standard snow leopard geckos have been produced by selective breeding. The Mack snows however are caused by Co-dominant genes (see genetics part). If an animal has one of the two CO-dominant genes then it is visible “het" for Mack super Snow (aberrant and lighter base color). Mack super Snows are really black and white and have a stripe formed out of dots across their back and tail. Mack Super Snow photograph from Steve Sykes, click here to go to his website!. R.A.P.T.O.R: The A.P.T.O.R. (Albino Patternless Tremper ORange) or R.A.P.T.O.R. (Red eye Albino Patternless Tremper ORange) is a morph originally introduced by Ron Tremper in 2004. A (R)APTOR is in fact a Tangerine patternless tremper albino most times with a considerable amount of carrot tail and/or carrot head. The patternless gene in (R)APTORs is a new gene that isn’t compatible with the 'old' patternless gene. The difference between an APTOR and a RAPTOR are the eyes. A real RAPTOR has two completely red eyes even when the pupil is closed. So it’s the pigment of the iris that is red. The animal on the photograph is a Snake Eye RAPTOR, it hasn’t got the entirely red eyes of a RAPTOR, but a sort of snake eye half red/half normal. APTORs have also red eyes because of the albino genes, but that is only when the pupil is open and not the real red pigment that the RAPTOR possesses! On the photograph our Snake Eye R.A.P.T.O.R. Belthazor. Giants: Giants can also be combined with all other morphs, but most giants are tremper albinos, because that is the phase in which Ron Tremper discovered this new phase. The giant phase is also a CO-dominant treat. There are giants and super giants (one or two genes are present). Giants (1 gene) become larger and heavier than the average leopard gecko and a super giant (2 genes) becomes even larger and heavier than a giant. On the photograph our giant (possibly super giant) albino female Zena. up The enclosure The minimum space required for couple of leopard geckos is generally considered to be 60x40x40 centimeters (lxbxh). Personally I think that is a little bit small, but that’s my opinion and it is for everybody himself or herself to decide what he or she likes best. We use different sizes of enclosures with varying numbers of geckos. We have few couples, since most of our animals are kept in larger groups. We have two cages of 125 x60x60 (lxbxh) in which we keep five leopard geckos, one male and four woman women. There can never be more than one male in one cage at a time, because males will fight over territory possible until one of them dies. I also have two cages of 160x50x50 (lxbxh) in which approximately 7 to 8 leopard geckos are kept. This pleases very well. The air humidity does not need to be very high for leopard geckos. However, be sure always to have a water dish available for your leopard geckos so they are able to drink any time they want. Spraying from time to time will be sufficient. We ourselves spray more often during the summer than during the winter. up The substrate At this time we use little lime-scraps as substrate. This substrate consists out pure English lime and we like this substrate most out of the different substrates that we have tried. We have also used the much cheaper “sand barge” sand. This also works very well in a leopard gecko terrarium, but it only has one disadvantage. That is that you frequently buy it in bags while it is still wet (often can be found at garden centers). In itself the wet sand is no problem, but you must take into account that it can take quite a time to let the sand dry and it is better to let the sand dry before you put the animals in the cage. We have also used calcium-sand, which is available in many colors. We have used the orange calcium sand, which exist from little balls that are a little bit bigger then the lime-scraps. It is a very good substrate, but we often found many of the balls in the faces of the geckos and it might enlarge the danger for constipation. We have never had constipations at our leopard geckos, but we just felt better about the lime-scraps. Calcium sand is rather expensive, but it looks very great in your enclosure because of the nice colors, whereas lime-scraps are a bit dull due to there gray to white color. up Feeding Usual leopard geckos only eat live prey. They don’t eat vegetables and fruits. It differs strongly what different people feed to leopard geckos, but the most people in the Netherlands mainly feed crickets and mealworms. We ourselves also mainly feed crickets and mealworms and as variation we feed grasshoppers, wax worms and even bay mice that are up to four days old. Some people think mealworms are not suitable for leopard geckos because they could eat their way out of the stomach of a leopard gecko. As far as we know this is complete nonsense. Almost all large gecko breeders in the USA "only" feed mealworms without having problems. The geckos that have been raised on mealworms only grow very fast and therefore we believe that it is not a problem not to offer al lot of variation of food. It is however quite important to “gut load” the mealworms (and all other food animals) well. "Gut loading is very important. "Gut loading" is defined as filling the gut of prey items with nutritious foods before they are fed to your geckos. A more nutritious prey will be a benefit to your geckos. It is also important to watch the size of the food animals, especially for young animals. In General the following rule is applied: the length of the prey must not be larger than the length of the head of the leopard gecko. Therefore baby leopard geckos frequently get the smallest crickets (in the Netherlands size 4 to 5) or buffalo worms and this is slowly increased to size eight 8 crickets and mealworms. From time to time we also use Wax worms, but then especially for young or thin animals, who can use some extra. Wax worms are like junk food to leopard geckos, they like them very much but they quickly become fat of them. When we buy wax worms we usually buy wax worms with feeding substrate included. These contain more and smaller wax worms then the packages with wax worms without substrate. The smaller wax worms are better suited to be fed to baby leopard geckos, because the big ones are too large for them. It takes more work to feed wax worms when you use the wax worms with feeding substrate, because you have to dig through the substrate to find the wax worms and they make cocoons faster when they are in substrate, so you have to peel them out of the cocoon before you can feed them. These disadvantages don’t keep us from using the wax worms with feeding substrate, because we can’t use the large ones for baby leopard geckos and in our opinion the advantages are greater than the disadvantages. Unfortunately the wax worms with feeding substrate are harder to find at pet stores so we usually buy them at shows. As mentioned before we also feed grasshoppers as variation. We feed half grown grasshoppers, because adult grasshoppers are quite large. Only with full size adult we some times feed full size grasshoppers, but most times only when our half size grasshoppers have grown full size before we fed them. Sometimes we feed pinkies. These contain very much calcium and other nutritious ingredients and are especially well for adult females who are laying eggs, because laying eggs cost a lot of energy to the females. Not all leopard geckos will eat pinkies especially when you try to feed them while they are already dead. Most geckos only take live prey. It is certainly not necessary to feed pinkies when you feed them enough. Very important at feeding the leopard geckos is the use of food supplements like calcium and vitamins. Leopard geckos really need to have their food powdered with calcium or vitamins regularly, because the food animals themselves don’t contain enough of them. We also put a dish of calcium into the enclosure so they can lick from it when they want to. The geckos make good use of that. Another option is for example to put some vitamin drops into the water supply. We do that in addition of powdering the food animals and therefore not as replacement! up Heating / Lighting To heat our enclosures we mainly use light bulbs. This always worked very well for us until May 2005 when we bought our first albino leopard gecko. For this animal the light that the bulbs emitted was slightly to bright and so he closed his eyes and walked away into the shade. We then started to use infrared lamps. The geckos do not see the light that they emit and voila, the albino kept his eyes open! A large disadvantage that these lamps have is that you can’t see the true colors of the leopard geckos when you use them. Because we can see the red light that the lamps emit, everything looks red, what doesn’t matter to use with the normal phase leopard geckos, but at our hybino you didn’t see his beautiful colors anymore. For this reason we have changed to ceramic lamps for heating in combination with little spotlights to provide a small amount of light which doesn’t bother the geckos and still makes it possible for us to see their true colors. Most of our enclosures however are still heated and lighted by simple bulbs of a different wattage. It is important to know that Bell albinos don’t like any form of (visible) light. Bell albinos don’t like too much light (and even can die form too much light) because of their eyes. Bell albinos are the albinos with the reddest eyes, which are the most vulnerable. Red light (read: infra-red) should also work, because that light isn’t visible to the geckos. In the enclosure you want to create a temperature gradient. Under the spotlight it can rise up to a maximum of 35 degrees and in the cold area we try to keep it at about 28 degrees Celsius. In This way a great piece of the enclosure will be at about 30 degrees. To create this temperature gradient it’s important to pay attention to a couple of points: 1. Do not place your heat source in the middle of your enclosure. In other words: lamps must not hang in the middle of in your terra, but more to one of the sides. That side will become the warmer side of the enclosure end the other side will automatically be cooler. Same with warmth mats, not the entire enclosure has to have a warmth mat underneath so place them under your enclosure more to one side then the other. 2. By choosing the wattage of your lamp or your warmth so that they almost produce the exact amount of heat that you need to reach the temperature that you want and then adjust it with a simple dimmer. This way you can reach the desired temperature very closely. Best way is to use a thermostat. A thermostat works with a sensor that you place inside of your enclosure. The sensor measures the temperature at the place where you put your sensor and the thermostat will regulate your heat source until the temperature at the place where the sensor is situated reaches the temperature that you have set at your thermostat. There are two types of thermostats. I can describe how they work but for this care sheet that is not important. What, however, is important are the effects that occur with the two different types. In one case, the thermostat only has the possibility to turn the heat source off or on completely, so when the temperature at the sensor reaches the desired value it completely turns of your heat source. When the temperature decreases under the desired value then it completely turn on your heat source again. In this way you get a fluctuation and when you use a lamp as a heat source then it will blink. That is not good for the lamp and it isn’t very pleasant for both you and your geckos. This kind of thermostat can be used with other heat sources than lamps, but better is the other type of thermostat. The second type works in the following way. The thermostat also measures the temperature with a sensor but instead of waiting to turn of the heat source until the desired temperature is reached it starts to dim your heat source more and more as the temperature reaches the desired value. When the temperature is reached then the heat source will be shut of completely and when temperature deceased again then it will just turn your heat source on a little bit so the fluctuations will be much smaller. Because the lamp is dimmed gradually instead of being put on and off all the time you can use this kind of thermostat with a lamp perfectly. It isn’t irritating for you or your gecko’s to see the lamp going of and on very slowly and most times you also will have a second light source (which is smaller) so there will remain some light in your enclosure at all time. Pay attention to the fact that it is much harder to create a temperature gradient in a small enclosure. Therefore 35 degrees under the pot is too much because then you will never be able to reach 28 degrees in the cold area. In smaller enclosures you must pick warm and cold temperature more around the average, so that it is not too warm or too cold for your geckos. To create the greatest temperature gradient possible, place your heat source as far to one side (or corner) of the enclosure as possible. You can learn from you geckos if they like the temperature or not. If it is too warm they will constantly be at the cold spots in your enclosure. If it’s too cold they will warm themselves under the spotlight frequently. If you notice this behavior, then you can adjust the temperature by using a higher (or lower) wattage. Another good thing to do that also has to do with warming your enclosure is to put a thick real stone under your spotlight. During the day your spotlight will warm up the stone and during the night the stone will provide warmth to your geckos. In this way they can still regulate their body temperature at night. up Hiding places All animals must be able to find a hiding place of their own. Bests is to provide as much hiding places as the number of animals + 1. Most times your geckos wont use all of the hiding places but just one or two. Don’t take them away however, because in certain circumstances a gecko seeks solitude for example when he or she is going to shed, has to lay eggs or just wants to hide for another gecko. Mostly when geckos shed they want to be alone. They seek a moist place and we provide them a barge with moist peat moss! In the large groups of geckos we always provide two barges of peat moss. For barges we use ice cream barges in which we cut a hole. You can cut the entrance hole in the side or in the top of the barge. In the side has advantage because you can see it better when your geckos have laid eggs because they can dig the barge full with the substrate from your enclosure. Disadvantage is that your barge with peat moss and your substrate become a mess. A hole in the top of the barge keeps your geckos from digging the barge full with substrate, but it also makes is more difficult to see when they have laid eggs. up Decoration If you have placed enough shelters in your enclosure, then you can decorate the rest of your enclosure as you like. You can use (not toxic) plants in the terra, but hold in mind the climate. Only few plants will bear the hot climate that leopard geckos need. Cactuses are possible, but only use those who have no spines because they can wound the geckos. Also remember that a gecko can dig out the plants! Therefore we don’t use real plants in the enclosure, but only fake ones. Geckos don’t concern much about how you decorate the enclosure. They do like to climb so be sure that everything is attached well. up Breeding leopard geckos Breeding leopard geckos is rather easy. There are however a number of things you must know. These will follow below: 1. If you want to breed your leopard geckos, then the females should be at a minimum weight of 45 grams. They can also breed when they weigh less, but laying eggs demands very much energy of the ladies and therefore they must have enough fat reserves! The male may be a little bit lighter/smaller, but not too much. I would apprehend approximately 40 grams as a minimum weight for the male. Some women are very small (what can occur when they lay eggs too early), but nevertheless most females will reach 45 grams in the end. Small females will be very fat when they reach that weight. 2. You can choose to keep the male and the females together all the time (we do so) or separate them to put them together only when they have to mate. Both manners have their advantages. 3. Females can lay many eggs per year. The male can be separated to prevent exhaustion. 4. Calcium is very important for an egg laying female. Provide a dish with calcium at all times. 5. Provide a barge of moist peat moss in the enclosure. If the females can’t find a suitable place to lay their eggs then they can lays the eggs in sand or they do not lay them at all. In the first situation the result is: loss of eggs. In the second case the result is: they can die from not laying the eggs! 6. After 24 hours the eggs may not be turned over. Place a dot on the top of the eggs with a marker, so you can put it in the incubator with the same side up. If you turn the egg the embryo can die! 7. Arrange enclosures for the young leopard geckos. They cannot be kept together with adult leopard geckos, because they can eat them. 8 Be sure to have an incubator and a bucket of vermiculite (or perlite). It is not hard to make your own incubator. You can use the “au bain marie” principle, which is frequently chosen for home made incubators because it is very simple. You just need a big barge with a layer of water in it (for example an old aquarium). By heating this water with e.g. aquarium heating you can get the air in the incubator to get warm and moist. The eggs will lie in a small cup, which stands on a grating above the water level. The lid is frequently slanting so that the drops run downstairs and cannot fall on top of the eggs. Underneath you can see our own “au bain marie” incubator. I have used tempex to isolate the incubator. This way the temperature in incubator fluctuates less and the influence of the outside temperature is smaller. It prevents some loss of warmth and therefore saves energy! If you have met the conditions above then you can start breeding. As soon as an adult leopard gecko male comes near adult female leopard geckos he will mate with them immediately at most times. He keeps mating with the females during the summer. In autumn/winter (simulate with shorter light period) they frequently automatically stop mating. After the first time a couple mates it will last some weeks (minimum 2) before the eggs arrive. The first pair of eggs fails frequently. The female lay the eggs at a moist place and most times this will be in the barges with moist peat moss, which you provide. If the female is ready with laying eggs then she will bury the eggs as much as possible. They can move a lot of sand and they will stay close around they eggs the first 24 hours. After laying eggs we generally leave the female alone for a while before we dig up the eggs. After digging up the eggs we cover up the spot where the eggs were, because else the female starts burying that place all over again. When the eggs are in the incubator, watch them regular to check if the substrate on which you keep them is still moist enough. After some days you can see if the eggs are fertilized. Fertilized eggs can be recognized at a red glow when you shine on/through it with a small flashlight. Unfertilized eggs remain yellow and will often mould. Always take away rotten/mould eggs to protect your other eggs. You can also separate them in another cup. The eggs can become too wet or too dry. Too wet eggs become “transparent”, too dry eggs will fall in. If it is not too bad, then can you solve this by adding dry vermiculite if the eggs are too wet add or by adding a small amount of water when the eggs are too dry. A good mixture of water and vermiculite is 100 gram of water on 100 gram of vermiculite. This may seem too feel too dry, but it is exactly good. Depending on the temperature it will last longer or shorter for the bay geckos to hatch and you how much males or females you will get. At 28o Celsius the baby geckos hatch at approximately 8 to 9 weeks and you will get mainly females. At 32o Celsius you mainly get men and hatching will occur after approximately 6 weeks. At 30.5 o Celsius you will get 50% males and % females and hatching will take about 7 weeks. Young leopard geckos do not need as much space as adults do. Large enclosures only make it harder for them to find their food. For this reason hold them in small enclosures. We ourselves keep our hatchlings in 50x30x25 cm boxes and we have up to 4 young geckos in them. As they become larger we transfer them to bigger enclosures. Be careful with placing too many animals together. It can then happen that one gecko becomes very dominant to the others. They will eat most off the food alone as a result of which the other ones get nothing or too little. Also it can occur that young geckos byte in each other’s tails when there are too much geckos in one enclosure and they have to compete for food too much. This can result into tail/foot losses. The first months we feed almost every day, afterwards we reduce the feeding slowly to two a three times a week. up Genetics at leopard gekcos When you want too breed leopard geckos, genetics are very important. With geneticist you not only can predict how your offspring will look like (phenotype), but you also can determine what genetic genes/properties they are carrying if they are visible or not (genotype). The genotype of a leopard gecko is stipulated by its parents. Half of the genes come from the mother and half from the father. As a result you can frequently predict the outcome of the crosses that you make. There are different types of properties at leopard geckos, which will be taken into consideration hereafter. Recessive properties at leopard geckos: At first we have the recessive properties, which are stipulated by 1 couple of genes. That the property is recessive means that it is not dominant and that only in the situation that a leopard gecko inherits the recessive gene from the same property from both parents the property becomes visible. If an animal inherits 1 recessive gene then the property will not be visible, but the animal is carrier for one gene and he/she can pass on the gene to his or her offspring. Such animals we call hets because they are heterozygous for the property in question. Examples of recessive leopard gecko morphs are: Patternless Blizzard Albino(rainwater albino, tremper albino, bell albino) There are three different albinos types of which the genes are differently, as a result of which they are not compatible. As an example we will cross an albino with a normal phase leopard gecko. From the albino parent the offspring always gets an albino gene and from the normal phase leopard gecko, a normal phase gene (we assume that the normal phase leopard gecko is not heterozygous). The offspring therefore will exist for 100% out of normal phase animals, which all are heterozygous (het.) for albino. You can also represent this cross in characters: A small character stands for a recessive gene and a capital letter for a standard normal phase gen. parent 1 = normal, dus twee standaard genen:AA parent 2 = albino, dus twee recessieve genen:aa possible gene combinations offspring: parent 1: A x parent 2: a = Aa = normal het. voor albino. When we cross a normal het. for albino with an albino (both of same the type albino), then become it more interesting. From parent 1 the offspring theoretical gets, a normal gene in 50% of the cases and a recessive albino gene in the other 50% of the cases. From parent 2 the offspring always receives a recessive albino gene. Therefore 50% of the offspring will turn out to become normal het. for albino (if parent 1 passes on a normal gene) and in the other 50% of the cases the offspring will become albino (if parent 1 passes on a recessive albino gene). In characters: parent 1 = normal het. albino:Aa parent 2 = albino:aa possible gene combinations offspring: parent 1: A x parent 2: a = Aa = normal het. albino. parent 1: a x parent 2: a = aa = albino. It becomes more complicated if you cross a normal heterozygous for albino with another normal heterozygous for albino. Both parents will pass on an albino gene in half of the cases and a normal gene in the rest of the cases. In this way there are twice as much gene combinations that can occur, compared to the previous example (namely four). The offspring will exist out of normal phase animals for 25%, in the situation that both parents pass on the normal gene, 50% will become normal het. albino, if one of the two parents passes on a normal gene and the other one passes on an albino gene, the last 25% will turn out to become albino, as both parents pas on an albino gene. In characters: parent 1 = normal het. albino:Aa parent 2 = normal het. albino:Aa possible gene combinations offspring: parent 1: A x parent 2: A = AA = normal. parent 1: A x parent 2: a = Aa = normal het. albino. parent 1: a x parent 2: A = aA = normal het. albino. parent 1: a x parent 2: a = aa = albino. These are all the possible combinations of the parent genes and you immediately see how the percentages of the different the properties are determined. 1 out of 4 combinations, therefore 25%, are just normal, 2/4, 50% give normal het. albino and 1/4, therefore also 25% give albino! Of the animals that become normal you cannot see if they belong to the 50% that are het. for albino or that they are pure normal animals (25%). The chance is 2 out of 3 that the normal animals are heterozygous for albino and for this reason the animals also are called “normal 66% possible het. albino”. So when you see such names you now that it’s not certain if the animals are heterozygous, but that the possibility is 66%! As last example of recessive crossings we take a cross where two recessive properties are combined. We take two animals that are 100% heterozygous for albino and patternless. These you can get by crossing an albino with a patternless. If you have a male and female that are heterozygous for both albino and patternless (therefore double heterozygous or also called "double hets”), then you can get four different morphs as offspring: normal, albino, patternless and a combination of the two recessive properties patternless albino! To explain that in words is a whole story, but it is just like previous examples, you just take all possible gene combinations of the parents multiplied with each other to get the end result. The big difference is that we know have to take into account two different traits and therefore there are a lot more possible combinations that can be made: parent 1 = normal het. albino het. patternless:AaPp parent 2 = normal het. albino het. patternless:AaPp it is easier to see all combinations if only one parents gene combinations change at a time. I therefore use blocks of gene combinations with a different gene combination for parent 1 and always 1 possible gene combination for parent two. Both parents can pass on 4 gene combinations so eventually we will have 4x4 = 16 possible combinations: possible gene combinations offspring: parent 1: AP x parent 2: AP = AAPP = normal. parent 1: Ap x parent 2: AP = AAPp = normal het. patternless. parent 1: aP x parent 2: AP = AaPP = normal het. albino. parent 1: ap x parent 2: AP = AaPp = normal het. albino het patternless. parent 1: AP x parent 2: Ap = AAPp = normal het. patternless. parent 1: Ap x parent 2: Ap = AApp = patternless. parent 1: aP x parent 2: Ap = AaPp = normal het. albino het. patternless. parent 1: ap x parent 2: Ap = Aapp = patternless het. albino. parent 1: AP x parent 2: aP = AaPP = normal het. albino. parent 1: Ap x parent 2: aP = AaPp = normal het. albino het. patternless. parent 1: aP x parent 2: aP = aaPP = albino. parent 1: ap x parent 2: aP = aaPp = albino het. patternless. parent 1: AP x parent 2: ap = AaPp = normal het. albino het. patternless. parent 1: Ap x parent 2: ap = Aapp = patternless het. albino. parent 1: aP x parent 2: ap = aaPp = albino het. patternless. parent 1: ap x parent 2: ap = aapp = patternless albino. When you count up the different possibilities then you will get: 1/16(=6,25%) normal, 1/16(=6,25%) albino, 1/16(=6,25%) patternless, 1/16(=6,25%) patternless albino, 2/16(=12,5%) normal het. patternless, 2/16(=12,5%) normal het. albino, 2/16(=12,5%) patternless het.albino, 2/16(=12,5%) albino het patternless, 4/16(=25%) normal het. albino het. patternless. Polygenetic properties at leopard geckos: Beside recessive properties there are also polygenetic properties, which ere also called selective bred or line bred. These properties are not caused by a certain gene that can be designated, but by a complete group of genes together (poly=many, hence polygenetic = many genes). These properties always become expressed in the degree in which the animal inherits the concerning group of genes. Some polygenetic properties: high yellow hypo / super hypo / baldy tangerine carrottail carrothead jungle/stripe snow I want to mention, that I currently assume that these properties are polygenetic, because that is what is generally agreed to. There are however people who indicate that animals can be heterozygous for example carrot head and carrot tail, what indicates in my eyes that that properties are not pure polygenetic, because you cannot see (or hardly see) at those animals that they poses the concerning property. It sometimes costs years to discover whether and how exactly a certain property is stipulated genetically. As a result of which it is therefore not always proved on which manner a certain property is hereditary or not. At selective breeding the quantity of "correct" genes that an animal has, of the group genes that concern a certain property, is the factor, which determines to what extent a gecko shows the property. Because each gecko gets half of the genes from its mother and half from its father, a sort of average results. For example the property hypo, hypo means lack of pigmentation/dots. The mother has still some dots, but clearly less than an ordinary gecko. The father has no more dots on its back and is therefore super hypo. The offspring will therefore probable get more dots then the father, but less than the mother. However, deviations can appear up and down, because by chance more or less of the correct genes are passed on by both parents. With that knowledge we immediately get to the explanation why polygenetic properties are also called line bred/selective bred. To improve the animals, which show the desired polygenetic property, animals are crossed which both show the property. From the result of the cross the best individuals are selected (the upward deviations) to provide the best chance for more beautiful offspring and they are often crossed back on each other (brother/sister) or on one of their parents. This is done for one generation after another to improve the desired property and that is why it is called line bred and/or selective bred. At line breeding in contrast to recessive properties you can’t calculate how your offspring will look like. You can predict it a little bit if you know how the parents look like, but the offspring can always be more or less beautiful than you expect. It just appends on how much of the correct desired genes the parents pass on and therefore it is also luck if the offspring gets more beautiful than expected. Co-dominant properties at leopard geckos: The last type of genetic heredity at leopard geckos is caused by Co-dominant genes. These properties are just like recessive properties determined by one pair of genes. The big difference is that in the heterozygous form (if only one gene is present) the property is partially visible. Some CO-dominant properties are: Mack (super) Snow (super)giant These are both still rather new morphs, which aren’t available on the market a lot. As an example we take the giant property. If an animal has got one giant gene then the animal becomes clearly longer and heavier than the average leopard gecko. An ordinary leopard gecko can possible reach the weight of a giant, but then he/she will be very fat. A giant reaches that weight being less thick and longer (and can become heavier when it becomes fat). If an animal has got two giant genes then it becomes even larger and heavier than the average giant. Co-Dominant genes pass on in the same way as recessive genes, with the exception that an animal which is "het." Partially shows the property. de kruizingen: normal x normal = normal. normal x giant (1 giant gene inherits "het. super giant") = 50% giant, 50% normal. giant x giant = 25% normal , 50% giant, 25% super giant. normal x super giant = giant. giant x super giant = 50% giant 50% super giant. super giant x super giant = super giant. up