Bibron's Gecko- Pachydactylus bribronii

some of you may have read that I got two of these guys back in september. well, last week the smaller of the two died. i found what appeared to have been a regurgitated cricket on the basking rock (not a heat rock by the way, jsut a rock under the heat lamp). i am worried that the cricket may have been too big for the little guy. he/she looked fine otherwise, beyond being dead...... (i use papertowel for substrate, no sand)

now i've noticed that the larger one (not quite full grown but almost) doesn't eat much. he/she didn't eat much before the other one died either though. i'm wondering if its just that the crickets are too large so he/she won't eat them or maybe I need to feed him/her something else??? if so, what??? maybe its that fact that they're live crickets and hard to catch??? this larger bibron I noticed does move more slowly than the smaller one did and those crickets are speedy little ****ers..............

any help would be much appreciated

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1.2.0 Green Anoles ("Gillespie, Billie, Lena")
0.1.0 Crested gecko ("Betty")
1.0.0 Rosy Boa ("Boomer", we're assuming he's male for now)

I have some caresheets and articles on the Bibron's laying around here somewhere, Ill see what I can come up with.

I am guessing that your gecko is not full grown, since they have yet to be sexed, am I right? Can you give me a quick rundown of what you got going on there (humidity, lighting, etc)?

hi mam,

sorry to hear about your loss. they look like really great little lizards.

i did not even know what one was a few minutes ago, but curiousity pushed me to look them up. really cute!

so, as long as your setup is right (i read on one site that a uvb light is beneficial and they need a relative humidity of at least 65%,) then it is very possible that the food items could be too big. as a rule you should feed insects that are no bigger than the space made from one eye to the other.

if you are really concerned that it might be the food, then an option would be to get small crickets, and if speed is a factor, you could break the jumping legs off. i do this for some of my (clumsier) baby leopard geckos 'till they get the hang of eating. also, have you tried feeding mealworms? you can just put them in a bowl and they can't go nowhere...

maybe it didn't have anything to do with food, though. it is possible that the two geckos were stressing each other out, and that the smaller died as consequence. i (five minutes ago) read that bibron's are best as solitary critters, and besides, even community animals can sometimes not feel comfortable with one another, especially if they are of different sizes. maybe being alone will help the one you have now to feel more relaxed and secure, and he will start eating better.

i dunno...just some ideas though.

again sorry about your loss...

lola

chronic, if you find thsoe caresheets, please post. i've only found limited info, and much of it has been conflicting (most of it has been in other languages...). some say dryer, some say more humidity, so i've been spraying the tank down once a day when I do the anoles, maybe I should up that. also, i've read theyre noctural so something like a uv light was not needed. as for whether they could share space, all I could find was not to mix two males as these guys can be territorial, and to watch any other pairings. i may have just missed the signs of stress......

lola, i thought about the stress factor as was waiting to see any blantant signs, and yes, both are/were juvies (the remaining 'big guy' is about 5 or 6 inches snout to tail, the smaller one was about 3 or 4 inches snout to tail...). initally I was worried the larger would bully the small, but they always used the same hide, though I had two for them, and would often just lay there next to each other on the basking rock without incident (then again, i dont' see what happens after lights out....).

i'll have to try a bowl of mealworms.

also, i thought I remember reading somewhere that female leopard geckos were known to enjoy a dish of calcium. think a bibron would too? i'm thinking I have a female, but its still difficult to tell for sure...............

any other thoughts would be great here, thanks!

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1.2.0 Green Anoles ("Gillespie, Billie, Lena")
0.1.0 Crested gecko ("Betty")
1.0.0 Rosy Boa ("Boomer", we're assuming he's male for now)

aha! i can tell you about this! yes, it is true that Leopard Geckos (not just females, my males do it too) will lap at a dish of calcuim. i think that in the wild, they have been known to lap at the ground in search of calcium, so that if they actually have a bowl of it in their cage, they are likely to eat it.

as for a bibron, i don't know. they are climbing geckos, aren't they? leopard geckos are terrestrial, where they would be likely to lap at the ground. i once knew a couple of tokays that would have nothing to do with a bowl of anything, and all they did was stick to the walls of their cage all day.

it doesn't hurt to try, though! and also, what I do with my Leopard Geckos, if you are going to do the bowl of mealworms thing, just put a bunch of calcuim in that bowl.

later gator,

lola

I had a bibron's gecko for 8 years. They're native to rocky areas of Tanzania, Angola, and other parts of Africa. I've read a lot that they need UV lighting, but they are a nocturnal gecko, and I housed Gex without any UV for 3 years or so with no problems. I do keep community tanks, and Gex spent the majority of his life living with anoles, however, he was in a 55 gal, and usually preferred the drier, rockier end of the cage. I wouldn't raise the humidity much more than 65%.

Bibrons definately like to hide during the day. Gex spent most of his time in rock crevices or underneath thick branches. I doubt they'd go for calcium, I tried it once out of curiousity and Gex paid no attention to it. He always had a really good appetite though, but like lola said, the crix need to be a certain size. Most bibrons are wild caught I believe, so yours may have parasites. What's your tank like? Gex would actively hunt crix, but he also liked to wait and ambush. After dark is when he'd do his most active hunting though.

Hope this helped a little. Pretty random paragraphs, but oh well

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+5 bonus points to whoever finds me a job!

"Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines." - John Benfield

Most of this is coming directly out of Reptiles Magazine, March 2004 issue. Someone wrote the editor after not being able to come up with any info on their new geckos. Anyways P. bibroni is restricted to southern Africa and not currently exported, what is currently found in the trade almost always is virtually identical P. turneri, found in Tanzania, Zimbabwe, and South Africa.

True bibroni have regular dark brown bands while turneri are broken and highly irregular in color.

Bibron's do best in warm dry terrariums. warm temps 70-85 degrees farenheit. And although nocturnal it says they like to bask under filtered light and usually stay out during the day. In nature they are colonial and found by the dozens. They like a temperature gradient and a single nightly misting should suffice. People use sand and those worried about impactoin use wood chips. They like rocky piles and dry gardens in nature.

That was pretty much it, half the article was care and the other half was breeding and hatchling care.

I thought I had more but I have a tendancy to recycle everything , Im very sorry for you loss and hope that your other little one is doing ok.

chronic, i HAD read that it could be the other gecko type. guess I will have to wait until it is fully grown to see. the littler one didn't have the pronounced stripes, but the big guy does, though I will have to take another look at these stripes.

i got them from a breeder, so I assume its not a wild one, they had a big grouping of them in different sizes...................

tried the mealworms last night, will have to see if it ate any. will try smaller crickets as well and hope for the best. since its tank is on a rack below the anoles, he does get some uv light indirectly.

as for the tank setup, its a 10 gal standard aquarium, papertowel for substrate, large flat rock under a heat light for "sunning", water dish, food plate for the worms, two wooden hides, and some leafy "branches" (think fake flower arrangement style...... gotta love walmart) for extra hiding and light blocking/cat attention blocking. and a screen lid of course.

here's hoping. thanks everyone for the ideas and the advice

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1.2.0 Green Anoles ("Gillespie, Billie, Lena")
0.1.0 Crested gecko ("Betty")
1.0.0 Rosy Boa ("Boomer", we're assuming he's male for now)

How big is yours? Mine never grew very large. He maxed out at about 5-6 inches long. Here's a pis of Pachydactylus turenri:

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgu...lr%3D%26sa%3DN

I hope the link actually works. Anyway, it does look very similar to the bibron's gecko, but it doesn't look quite the same. I wish I had some pics of Gex I could show you, but I'll have to wait.

__________________
+5 bonus points to whoever finds me a job!

"Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines." - John Benfield