Mourning Gecko - Lepidodactylus lugubris (Captive Bred)
 

Defining Characteristics:

• Nocturnal
• Easy to Care For
• Easy to Breed
• Parthenogenetic
• Can Be Kept With Poison Dart Frogs
• GREAT IN GROUPS

View here $29.99


Size: Adult mourning geckos get up to about 4" in length. Yellow-bellied mourning geckos seem to get a ⅛-¼” larger than normal mourning geckos. When they hatch, Lepidodactylus lugubris measure less than an inch! The juvenile mourning geckos sold by Josh's Frogs measure about 1-1.5" when shipped.

Age: Lepidodactylus lugubris is capable of living over 10 years in captivity, with reports of 15 years or more in the literature. All mourning geckos for sale at Josh's Frogs are well started juveniles, and are over a month old.

Shipping for any number of animals is just $39.99. Frogs are shipped via FedEx Priority Overnight and are delivered by 12:00 pm to most locations, Tuesday through Friday. Josh's Frogs does not ship frogs internationally. Scheduling of frog order is dependent on your availability and weather.

I've posted this once before in an attempt to move you to remove this poor care information. Please remove the claim that's quoted at the beginning of this post, as it isn't good advice and causes many novice keepers a fair amount of trouble -- and it is simply bad for the animals in terms of different optimal environmental parameters and pathogen transmission.

We all know you want to move as many animals as possible, but suggesting people make mixed species enclosures to do that isn't responsible.

Depending on the species of dart frog and how you house them, you can absolutely keep Dart Frogs and Mourning Geckos together. Its been done many times before with success. Where'd that photo come from? Seems a bit far fetched that a frog would be able to catch a gecko that big by the head. I've seen many geckos and frog catch prey and that situation is rare. Not saying it doesn't happen but I'd just like to know the context of the photo. Was that gecko just then introduced to the frog tank? Had it been raised with the frogs only to be eaten as an adult? Why did the gecko not try to escape the frogs mouth? I could go on. My point is you seem to be getting bent out of shape about one photo of a large MG getting eaten and flat out saying the to different animals can't be kept together. I'm sorry but you're wrong.

"Its been done many times before with success"

So has drunk driving, smoking cigarettes and freediving. That (i.e. pointing at successful cases) is not how you determine if something is a good bit of advice to give either generally or especially to novices, who are this vendor's target audience. Looking at the failed cases, how avoidable they are in real world practical terms, and what the cost-benefit analysis looks like (this is the big issue) is a much better way to determine what is good advice.

I don't know the background behind the photo -- it's been floating around for a while. I'm using it as an attention getting device to bring up the larger point that this is simply bad advice from a vendor who is well known for giving bad husbandry advice of all sorts.

MGs have a preferred body temp of about 86F, which calls for about a 90F hot spot, which is not the sort of thing that's good to have in a dart viv where high temps are a health risk -- especially coupled with this vendor's backwards recommendation to have no ventilation in the enclosure.

MGs are best provided with supplemental CGD, which is a PITA in frog vivs -- the frogs sit in it, it attracts ants.

Pathogen transfer between species is not something responsible keepers take lightly. You may have heard about this little pandemic thing they're having somewhere? Yeah, that happens to caged animals too. We simply have no idea how many pathogens are floating around in captive herps -- they're being discovered regularly (nidovirus is a good example). Also, genetic recombination between pathogens is a big issue -- it is one of the primary drivers of the current spread of B. d. (frog chytrid).

I was negligent in making this clear in the first post, but I'm not getting bent out of shape about one photo. I'm pointing out one example among many of bad care advice given so to sell more animals to unknowing novices. If I had a dollar everytime I read "well I'm following JF's instructions, why is this going so badly"... no, I wouldn't be rich, but I'd have a pocketful.

Oh boy, I'm not poking at this any more. It's an ad that belongs to neither of us and you sure worded it up. Just wanted to correct your statement. But what do I know? I've only produced like a few thousand geckos in my life, lol. You seem to have it all figured out. Goodluck and thanks for your reply.

Sorry Josh's. Just delete and repost.

I kept mourning geckos with dart frogs for a couple years and never had an issue. The only issue I had is the mourning geckos reproduced like crazy. They just kept multiplying lol

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