Monday, May 14, 2012

LEOPARD GECKO MORPHS

Leopard Gecko Morphs - Variations of Color and Pattern in Leopard Geckos

The leopard gecko is one handsome lizard indeed. These unique animals are usually yellow with black dots, but may be found in a wide variety of color and pattern variations. Gecko breeders actively breed geckos for different colors and patterns, often resulting in some surprising looking animals.

There are a few terms we should cover quickly here: pattern, color and phase (or morph). By color, we mean the basic color of the gecko. For instance, yellow in the case of most leopard geckos. Pattern means the way that the black dots on the animal are arranged. Phase (or morph) covers the entire range of appearance traits that the gecko has been bred for.

A pet gecko is one thing where you should choose based on appearance. You'll want to select a lizard which you find to be aesthetically appealing. There are many different leopard gecko morphs around to choose from. The following are some of the most popular morphs.

Jungle Leopard: This is the first type of gecko bred to have stripes. This is a varied phase which can produce some very unique-looking animals. There are two subcategories of this morph; "four eyed" and "bandit". The four eyed variety has two white spots, generally with a black dot in the center over each of its eyes. The bandit variety has a dark band between its eyes and over the nose, much like a bandit's mask.

Albino /Amelanistic: These geckos are off-white with pink eyes. There are many gecko owners who prize these reptiles for their unique look. There are regular albino geckos as well as Amelanistic (patternless) albino geckos available.

Blizzard: These geckos are a variant which have no patterns. Their eyes may vary in color from black to blue and are found in colors including white, the rare and highly prized blue-black (midnight blizzard), yellow (banana blizzard), brown and even purple!

Wild: This is the ordinary pattern seen in wild geckos. These animals feature dark transverse bands across their body as well as 3-4 dark rings on their tail. They have dark spots on their head and body which may also be mixed with tan.

Circle back: These geckos feature a black circle formed out of connected black dots on their backs.

Striped: These attractive leopard geckos have a light colored stripe running all the way down their body from their head to tail.

If you'd like to have a pet gecko, you have a lot of different choices of pattern and color. These are fun pets which can have a very unique look; remember that like any other pet, they need a healthy environment, proper care and plenty of love to do their best.

We are Leopard Gecko enthusiasts who were tired of finding incomplete information about our pet Geckos. We enlisted the help of some serious gecko enthusiasts, breeders, owners, and veterinarians who helped us compile information for people who just wanted to know how to take care of their Leopard Geckos knowledgeably and safely. Please visit our website Leopard Gecko Morphs to learn every thing you need to know.

LEOPARD GECKO BREEDING

How to Start Breeding Leopard Geckos
By: Uno Birawan

Speaking about lizards, you may find that the leopard gecko is one of the geckos that you can easily breed while in captivity. Their beautiful and unique patterns plus their obvious appearances that are very interchangeable through breeding made the leopard gecko most admired compared to other geckos. Breeding among geckos will create new specimens with more unique patterns, which makes the job of a breeder very exciting. 

How do we start a breeding process? First, you have to make sure that your male and female geckos are sexually mature. But before that, you should know how to distinguish the male and female. It is pretty easy.

You just turn over the gecko to see the under side. Male geckos possess two pronounced hemipenal swellings behind the stomach just on the tail part. A male gecko also possesses a V-shape pre-anal pores which lies just above the stomach and between the back legs.

Unlike the male, the female does not possess those hemipenal swellings, but they posses what is called pre-anal pits instead of the enlarged pores. You must be aware when mating a fat female gecko, since she may also show a sort of swelling that resemble the hemipenal swelling of a male. It is actually fat. 

The requirement for an adult gecko to breed is that it should be of the right age and is in a healthy condition. The right age of a male gecko is not less than 8 months, and has a weight not less than 45 grams. While for the female, it should not be less than 1 year of old with a minimum weight of 50 grams.

Actual act of breeding, which is the mating, is quite easy to manage. You can just put the gecko pair in the same enclosure and they will immediately mate, but it could also need some time for them to take action. In this case it is good to leave them together for a few days. Time will proof that after being placed together, the male may get aggressive and start to chase the female.

The first move of the male is usually biting the female. And if the female bites back it means that she is not interested yet. It looks like a fight, but this is a normal mating behavior of the leopard geckos. Another gesture of the male is shaking the tip of his tail very fast, back and forth, which sometimes can be very loud.

If the pair failed to mate after kept together for those few days, it is best to separate them for a while and try to mate them again after 2 - 3 days. Usually they will succeed and then you should observe the female. Breeders should prepare a suitable container for the female egg-laying. A humid hide which is filled with moist will do well.

After about 4 weeks of mating, the female gecko will start to lay eggs. The first clutch usually consists of 1 - 2 white oval eggs. Geckos are able to lay about 8 clutches per year, where there is an interval of 2 - 4 weeks between two laying.  

The laid eggs should be removed and kept in an incubator. It is the temperature of the incubator that determines the sex of the gecko babies. Set at a low temperature of about 80 degrees it is most likely that the clutch will be females.

On the contrary, a higher temperature of about 90 degrees, it is most likely that the clutch will be male. A temperature of in between, 85 degrees, will eventually generate a mixed sex of both males and females.

Uno Birawan is a Leopard Gecko enthusiast and wrote a lot about caring for leopard geckos. His observation on gecko care is that about 86.5% of geckos have the chance to die within 2 years of captivity. You can obtain more information on how to properly take care of a gecko and how to save it's life at http://leopardgeckocenter.blogspot.com. Lets make your gecko healthy and live longer.

Article Source: EzineArticles.com -  How to Start Breeding Leopard Geckos

BLACK PEARL LEOPARD GECKO

Black Pearl Leopard Gecko, a New Successful Breed of Leopard Gecko Morphs
By: Uno Birawan

If you are looking for the latest unique result of gecko breeding, The Black Pearl gecko seems to be the right one. This is a very special breed emerged as a result of the hard work of Konrad Wlodarczyk and friends who is a leading leopard gecko breeder from Poland, Europe.

Konrad started his so called Black Pearl Project silently with a few friends of his. The black gecko is in contrast with the albino gecko which has been one of the popular geckos on sale. Breeding a totally black gecko seems to be very challenging. This is typical the trait of a true breeder, who always seek to try to breed new morphs. If many breeders try to breed albinos, why not try to breed a black one. This was maybe what Konrad had in his mind.

Black leopard geckos are indeed the rarest morph that has been recently developed. It was in early 2008 when information about a successful breeding of black geckos spread over the leopard gecko community and enthusiasts. In spite of his successful work, Konrad moved to Australia and handed over the rights to further develop this project to The Urban Gecko a well known gecko breeder in Canada owned and operated by Craig and Lori Stewart.

Well, why are black geckos so special? Mainly of course, their totally black color which has never been seen and imagined by leopard gecko lovers. When many of newly breed offspring possess lighter and lighter color combination, this goes to the opposite direction, the creation of a darker version, even an extremely dark gecko.

Starting from its hatched egg, the baby gecko emerged in a totally black color without any pattern. The mature black gecko appears as an extremely black and silky skin. This hyper-melanistic color gives a deep and mystifying beauty that has never been seen before. It is truly an exclusive breed at this moment.

The majority of the Black Pearl babies are born extremely black and during their maturation they become a bit lighter in color which can be mistaken for a Mack Snow but with a difference of its blurry dark gray color pattern. When they become sexually mature their color could change again significantly to a velvet black color.

Another full melanistic breed is the Midnight Blizzard and was the only full melanistic morph in the past. Its melanine pigments appear as a brownish skin rather than black color which is unlike the Black Pearl with its extreme black color.

Since the introduction of the Black Pearl some years ago, many breeders tried to hatch dark melanistic geckos but failed to arrive at satisfactorily results. The reason of failure could be the absence of a gene that can produce such full dark melanistic pigments which should definitely be the trait of a real black leopard gecko. In such successful unique breeding cases, knowledge and experience plays a very important role.

Uno Birawan is a Leopard Gecko enthusiast and wrote a lot about caring for leopard geckos. His observation on gecko care is that about 86.5% of geckos have the chance to die within 2 years of captivity. You can obtain more information on how to properly take care of a gecko and how to save it's life at http://leopardgeckocenter.blogspot.com Lets make your gecko healthy and live longer.