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Old 03-31-2008, 01:43 AM   #41
Helenthereef
Geckos for boas

Hi, we get several species of small geckos that live literally 'in-house" and round the outside lights at night. Most of them don't get longer than about 6cm (2-3 inches) long.

Actual species are mostly the House gecko, Hemidactylus frenatus or the
Mourning gecko, Lapidodactylus lugubris (Great name!)
As a basic rule of thumb I'm feeding my snakes geckos with about the same head size as their own, and they are currently taking two at a sitting about once a week. I'm wondering whether in future I can just feed them more small geckos or if they will outgrow them completely.

In the forest we get larger species, I've seen the Giant Forest Gecko Gehyra vorax about 15cm (6 inches) long.

We've also got a lot of small skink species running around, and some of my friends have caught and fed these to their boas. Predominantly these are the Moth skink, Lipinia noctua and the Copper-striped Skink, Emoia cyanura. Both small and dark but with very pretty gold stripes. We also have a fairly large black skink in the forests, the Pacific Black Skink, Emoia nigra.

We have a couple of endemic iguanas too, The Fiji Banded Iguana, Brachylophus fasciatus (green with broad white bands) and the Fiji Crested Iguana, Brachylophus vitiensis (similar to the banded but with a black crest on the males) but they are threatened and protected and I don't think anyone would take too kindly to my feeding them to snakes!

There's a website you can check out for more information on breeding programmes for the endangered iguanas and parrots of Fiji: www.fijiwild.com

and if you want to support these you can have a look at the International Fund for the Conservation of the Fiji Crested Iguana: www.icffci.com

Cheers,
Helen