Hello,
I spent a couple of years doing behavioural
experiments with my Heteronotia binoei (Bynoe's
gecko). I found that pretty much, juveniles were
tolerated by the adults. It didn't matter when they
were put into the enclosure. But once the juveniles
got to approximately reproductive age/size, the older,
generally more dominant gecko would enforce its
superior role. However, once a heirarchy was
established, very few actual fights occurred. I
didn't do these experiments with males as I had a
colony of parthenogenetic geckos to play with.
In the wild, I would find large numbers of geckos
under large pieces of tin. However, the adults
appeared to have a minimum area that they occupied,
and no others came in that area. But as the animals
were disturbed by their houses being upended, the
behaviour was not what you'd call "normal".
I have put together an ethogram describing the
different behaviours observed in my captive girls.
However it is on a different computer. If anyone is
interested I'll post it later.
Cheers
Alexa
--- Patrick Huddleson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
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<html><div style='background-color:'><DIV><FONT
face=Arial size=2>
<P>Has anyone on this list done any research into
gecko social structures with different species? The
reason I ask this, is for the past 3 years I have been
running an experiment with my leopard geckos. The
original experiment was a self-sustaining vivarium for
the leopard geckos. That means the eggs were allowed
to incubate and babies were allowed to hatch and grow
with n the same enclosure with the parents. I have
witnessed many interesting behaviors since the start
of this experiment and now it has moved in to the
observation of the social structure of my leopard
geckos. The first thing that was surprising with this
experiment was the parental tolerance of the babies.
The parents don't bother the babies and the babies
actually stay within close proximity to the parents
most of the time. I believe this may be a protective
behavior because certain would be predators may be
scared away by the parents protecting themselves which
in turn protects the babies. Once the original !
babies started getting older, I noticed the formation
of a social structure within my geckos much like that
of group of gorillas. There was the alpha male and
then a submissive one. The males would occasionally
spar but it was nothing like what happens if you put
to two separate males together out side of a group
like this. Once, I actually took a male offspring from
before I started this experiment and put him in the
enclosure to see what would happen. Not only did the
Alpha male get in to a big fight with the newcomer
male, the other submissive male joined in too. It was
a fight to the death and I received a pretty nasty
bite from my big male trying to break it up. The alpha
male has his pick between the three other females and
sometime if he is not paying attention the other male
may get a go at a responsive female. They are all in a
48"x18"x18" enclosure, so there is plenty of room for
them all. An observation I have notice which
definitely needs more research is there m!
aybe a form of communication between the geckos. I'm
not a biologist and really don't have time to do it.
So I encourage anybody out there to look into this
more. What I have noticed is behaviors consisting of
nudges, nips and body movements that I can only
explain as a form of communication. I know I have seen
this form of communication in other animals, I just
can't think of what they are and where I saw it. </P>
<P>I now have 3 generations of geckos living in the
same vivarium. I have had my original female die
probably due to calcium deficiency and was took weak
because she was popping out eggs like a machine and I
had to remove another female because she was showing
signs of the same problem. I also recently removed the
submissive male due to increased fighting. I believe
this because of the decreased number of females in the
setup. The babies are doing great and the adults are
still laying eggs. I'm planning on restarting the
experiment again for more observations Moving on to
another group for several reasons. Mostly because of
inbreeding risks and to recreate the whole thing
again. </P>
<P>Has anybody seen these behaviors with Leos or with
any other gecko species? Has anybody ever done
anything like this with other geckos?</P>
<P>Do leopard geckos live in colonies in the wild? I
don't really know much about their wild natural
history. Any info or thoughts would be
appreciated.</P>
<P>Regards, Patrick Ian
Huddleson</P></FONT><BR><BR><BR></DIV></div><br
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=====
Alexa Ryhorchuk
Wildife Conservation Status
Environment Australia
GPO Box 787
Canberra ACT 2601
Ph: 02 6274 1329
Fax: 02 6274 2395
http://travel.yahoo.com.au - Yahoo! Travel
- Got Itchy feet? Get inspired!
