Animal · Pakistan, Afghanistan, India
Leopard gecko
Eublepharis macularius — the name this animal has in the language scientists everywhere share.
The leopard gecko is a spotted lizard from the dry hills of Asia, and unlike almost every other gecko it can blink and shut its eyes. It hunts insects after dark and stores fat in its thick tail. During the hottest hours it rests in a cool crack between rocks.
Picture credit: George Chernilevsky (Public domain) · Christian von Faber-Castell (CC BY 4.0) · Psyon (CC BY 3.0) · Wikimedia Commons
Where does the leopard gecko live?
Home: Dry rocky grassland and stony desert.
In the wild it lives in these countries: Pakistan, Afghanistan, India, Iran, Nepal.
Conservation status from the IUCN: not in danger.
The short profile
Fully grown: about 20 to 25 cm from nose to tail tip. It weighs about 0 065 kilograms. On the menu: insects.
The story behind it
Leopard geckos live in the dry, stony country of Pakistan, Afghanistan, India and Iran, where the days bake and the nights turn cool. Young geckos wear dark bands; as they grow, the bands break up into the spots that gave the animal its name. Unlike the geckos that race up walls, this one has small claws instead of sticky toe pads, so it walks on the ground and squeezes under rocks. It also has proper eyelids, which means it can blink, wipe dust from its eyes and sleep with them closed. Most of its food is insects and spiders, which it stalks slowly before a sudden snap. The fat stored in its plump tail keeps it going when prey is scarce, and if a predator grabs that tail the gecko can drop it and grow a shorter one back. Females lay two eggs at a time and may do so several times in a season. In the wild a leopard gecko often lives only a few years, but well-kept pets regularly pass twenty.
Find it on the globe
Leopard gecko is there as a tiny animated figure that breathes and looks around. From far away the planet is only a blue ball; detail arrives as you zoom in, and this one appears once you are close enough. Open it on the globe.
It sits at its real coordinates, not near them — the same numbers listed in the facts above. Switch off the layer for this kind of place and it disappears again; the buttons for that are down the right-hand edge.
Questions children ask
Can a leopard gecko climb glass?
No. It has little claws instead of the sticky pads other geckos use, so smooth glass gives it nothing to hold on to. It is built for walking over sand, stones and rock ledges.
Why does it drop its tail?
If a predator grabs the tail, it breaks off and wriggles on the ground while the gecko runs away. A new tail grows back, but it is shorter, rounder and never quite the same shape.
What does it do when the weather is too hot?
It disappears into burrows and rock cracks and stays there, hardly moving, through the driest weeks of the year. Resting like that through heat instead of cold is called aestivation.
Where these numbers come from
Every figure on this page was checked against public reference sources before publication. Where sources genuinely disagree, the text says so.
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