Hello,
Here is a quick overview of leopard gecko habitat and burrows that
might be helpful when trying to design a "naturalistic" vivarium.
To summarize, the general consensus with these authors is
that Eublepharis is fairly opportunistic in it's burrow choice. Minton
mentions, in "A contribution to the herpetology of West Pakistan",
"The fat-tailed gecko inhabits rocky desert and sparse
grassland with clay soil but avoids sand. It tends to live in
colonies. On the northern part of Malir Contonment near Karachi the
lizards are concentrated along a buried water pipeline where crevices
provide shelter and seepage supplies permanent moisture...Another
large colony inhabits rock walls supporting the highway in Bolan Pass
near Mach."
Szczerbak and Golubev's "Gecko Fauna of the USSR and Contiguous
Regions" mention E. macularius ..."on clay-gravel soil
covered by sand and abounding in bushes of Zygophyllum." They also
mention that the closely related E. turcmenicus was found near areas
with abundant rodent burrows.
Smith, in "Fauna of British India", says that the leopard gecko is...
"thoroughly nocturnal in its habits, hiding by day beneath stones or rocks."
An excellent habitat description occurs in J. A. Anderson's "A report
on the gecko Teratolepis fasciata (Blyth, 1853) from The Journal
Bombay Natural History Society 61(1):161-171 from 1964. The collection
site was a deserted cemetery at Raj Malk, district Thatta on the western edge of the
Indus
delta in Pakistan. "The terrain is flat with an average elevation of less than 10
ft. above sea level. The soil is loose, grey sand and silt. The area
is affected by salinity. The dominant vegetation is desert scrub,
particularly Salsola foetida and grasses. Two lakes lie alongside the
site."..."Loose bricks...lie scattered all over the ground intermixed
with larger stone slabs...A programme of mechanized cultivation is
under way all around the site."
"Holes of small gerbilles are numerous and the terrain around the
walled-in square is uneven and colonized by the brush-tailed Meriones
hurrianae."
A large variety of herps were found in this study site. Teratolepis
fasciata and Eublepharis macularius, of course, as well as (partial
list):
Hemidactylus brooki, H. persicus, H. flaviviridus, Mabuya macularia,
Acanthodactylus cantori, Calotes versicolor, Agama agilis,
Spalaerosophis diadema, Natrix piscator, Naja naja, Vipera russelii,
Echis carinata, Bufo andersoni, and Rana tigrina.
In, The Journal Bombay Natural History Society 85(2):437 1988, S. K.
Sharma discusses the capture of an adult E. macularius from a quarry
in the Alwar District. Here is Sharma's description of the site: "The
area is hilly with sparse
vegetation of Adhatoda vasica, Rhus mysurensis etc. Earlier, a dense
deciduous type of forest was present here but at present there are
only denuded hills."
I hope these references help clarify the types of places leopard
geckos occur in naturally. What's scary, is that this is about all the
info available on leopard gecko habitat, it shows how little we
know about the natural history of this animal.
--
Best regards,
Tony mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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