Just Getting Started

[Loppydog]

Hello all. I am just getting ready to take the plunge on Gargoyle gecko ownership and I have a few questions. First off, I am trying to determine a few things about morphs. I really like the coloring of the attached pic and I want to see what kind of morph it is. I am assuming, based on my limited knowledge, that it is reticulated with a white base. The other question I have is if this is simply a juvenile and will eventually get coloring? Or will they look black and white as an adult? My plan is to have a large”ish” enclosure and house a male and female for mating purposes, but I know that can be risky due to fighting. What is the consensus on that? I will have more questions, but I’ll stop here for now . Thanks in advance for any suggestions!

 

[acpart]

while.It's hard to tell the morph without a picture of the whole gecko from above, so another picture would be helpful. Gargoyles do change color into the late juvenile stage. They also have a "fired up" phase and a "fired down" phase, so the predominance of white may be due to it being "fired down", and it may be more colorful when active. When I was breeding geckos I generally kept the male and his breeding females together. In the case of the gargoyles, the male was with the females full time. There were a few incidences of dropped tails and in these cases I separated the male, or moved the "offender" out of the cage for awhile. For the most part they got along and may even do better in a large enclosure with lots of hiding spaces.
I do recommend you keep geckos for a least a year before breeding just to make sure you get the experience and like the amount of time you will be spending on care (not so much for a few geckos, but definitely more for the potential offspring as well).

Aliza

 

[Loppydog]

Thank you very much for the info. With that recommendation I will probably just get one for now and maybe later on down the road get another for the potential of mating. I just figured if they were together from an early age, maybe they would be less likely to fight. The ones I have seen are only “potentially” sexed anyway and my luck I would end up with two males lol. I have included one more pic of a similar gargoyle. Still probably not good enough to tell, but I am hoping these are common because I LOVE the way they look!

 

[acpart]

It does look like a reticulated morph. If you put them together from an early age, they will possibly try to mate before they're big enough. Best bet is to start with one, get to know it, then, if you feel as if you want to breed, get another along with its own enclosure and try putting them together when they're both big enough. I recently started writing articles for morereptiles.com and I wrote the "breeding crested geckos" article (very similar to gargoyle geckos). Here it is: https://www.morereptiles.com/how-to-breed-crested-geckos/

Aliza