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A very popular lizard these days in the pet world is the crested gecko. Number of great
reasons for that. Easy to keep animals is the primary one. He's an arboreal creature.
He needs an enclosure about 12 inches wide, 12 inches square, but they love height; 18,
24 inches is ideal.
Heavily planted is good for them; they like to hide during the day. They're nocturnal;
they come out and eat at night.
For many, moms in particula, sometimes the barrier to dad and the kids getting a pet
lizard in the house, the crested gecko doesn't need insects in order to survive. It does
not eat mice and meat.
What it really likes is fruity type of things, almost a nectar or something. It loves to
lap up with its long tongue that's often used to clean off his eyeball when it gets dirty.
The crested gecko will therefore live on prepackaged food, which are mixed like flour and water,
and you put it in a small dish and leave it at the bottom of the tank, and it's all the
nutrition the animal will need.
If you add a little bit of a waterfall, running water, you really recreate his natural habitat,
and these animals are very simple and happy to live in captivity.
A male and female together, they're not very long-lived, five to seven years perhaps, but
they are prolific breeders. So, oftentimes a coupling of males and females and they'll
breed in the tank, and you'll get babies, which is always a great treat and fun to watch.
Crested gecko is, again, coming from the New Caledonia area, South Pacific forests. Not
a very hot environment. They do not need intense light bulbs like some other lizards. Bearded
dragons, uromastyx need well over 100 degrees.
This animal is fine at room temperature with a little supplemental light at night just
to keep them a little warmer. They do not need any kind of ultraviolet light to live.
They're nocturnal, therefore they don't need all of that.
So, the crested gecko has become quickly one of the most popular reptile pets. Breeders
have had a field day with these because they're so prolific in their mating habits that we're
getting many different colors. Red ones, flame, harlequin, different spots. All different
types of crested geckos are adding a nice variable to the market place.
Anything that can stay this small, that will hang with you like this, certainly is a pet
that kids are going to love to have. It has that wow factor. It looks like it's from outer
space, almost. I can say a dinosaur, more from outer space, with his eyes wide open
like they are. They're wide open,of course, because he can't close them; they have no
opposable eyelid.
The crested gecko makes an awesome reptile pet. Something we definitely, it's growing
in popularity and I think it will be in the market for years and years to come.