Reptiles
Leopard Gecko
Eublepharis macularius · also called common leopard gecko, spotted fat-tailed gecko
The leopard gecko is a small, spotted, ground-living lizard from the deserts of Central and South Asia. It is calm, hardy, and long-lived, and it has become one of the most widely kept reptiles in the world — effectively a domesticated animal.
Overview
In the wild, leopard geckos live in dry, rocky country from Afghanistan and Iran across Pakistan into northwestern India. They shelter by day in burrows and rock crevices, where the temperature and humidity stay stable, and emerge at dusk to hunt. They are crepuscular rather than fully nocturnal, and they do not bask in strong sun the way many desert lizards do.
A gecko that breaks the gecko rules
Leopard geckos belong to an old branch of the gecko family that retained features most geckos lost:
- Movable eyelids, so they can blink and close their eyes to sleep.
- Clawed toes without adhesive pads — they walk and dig rather than climb smooth surfaces.
- A stout body and a fat-storing tail shaped like a carrot when healthy.
The skin is yellow to pale gold with dark spots. Hatchlings are boldly banded in brown and yellow and develop the leopard spotting as they mature.
Diet and hunting
Leopard geckos are pure insectivores, hunting by sight and smell at dusk. They stalk slowly, fix both eyes on the prey, wag the tail tip in concentration, and lunge. In the wild the diet is whatever invertebrates are active — crickets, beetles, spiders, scorpions, caterpillars — and they will also take other geckos’ hatchlings.
Defence
The tail is the gecko’s main survival trick. Threatened, it lifts and waves the tail to draw a strike there rather than at the head, and if seized it drops the tail cleanly, leaving the still-thrashing appendage behind. Regrowing a tail costs the gecko its fat reserve, so it is a last resort.
Reproduction
Like many reptiles, leopard geckos have temperature-dependent sex determination: eggs incubated around 26–29 °C produce mostly females, around 31–33 °C mostly males, with a mix in between. A female lays clutches of two eggs every few weeks through the breeding season, burying them in moist soil. Young hatch after around 45–60 days.
Leopard geckos and people
Almost every leopard gecko sold today is captive-bred, often many generations from any wild ancestor, and selective breeding has produced a wide range of colour and pattern morphs. Their manageable size, gentle temperament, simple ground-level housing, and 20-year lifespan make them a standard “first reptile,” and wild populations are not under pressure from the trade.
Leopard Gecko: common questions
Why can leopard geckos blink when other geckos can't?
Most geckos have no eyelids at all — the eye is covered by a fixed transparent scale, or spectacle, that they clean with the tongue. Leopard geckos belong to a subfamily, the Eublepharidae or "true eyelid" geckos, that kept working eyelids and can close and blink their eyes. It is one of the features that sets the group apart.
Do leopard geckos really drop their tails?
Yes. When grabbed or badly frightened, a leopard gecko can sever its own tail at a built-in fracture plane, and the detached tail keeps wriggling to distract the attacker while the gecko escapes. A new tail grows back within weeks to months, but it is shorter, smoother, and blob-shaped rather than segmented, because it is supported by cartilage instead of bone.
What do leopard geckos use their fat tail for?
The plump tail is an energy and water reserve. A healthy leopard gecko has a tail as wide as its neck; a thin, pencil-like tail is a sign of illness or starvation. During cool months, when the gecko is less active and eats little, it lives partly off the fat stored there.
Why are leopard geckos such common pets?
They tick every box for a beginner reptile — small, ground-dwelling so they need no tall climbing setup, active at dusk rather than needing intense daylight, calm and slow-moving, long-lived, and bred in huge numbers in dozens of colour and pattern "morphs." They were among the first reptiles to be truly domesticated, with pet lines now many generations removed from the wild.