Gecko Pet Care

Video Transcript

"Hi, my name is Tim Cole with the Austin Reptile Service. I've been keeping reptiles and amphibians for over forty years, and we're here to talk about geckos. There's quite a few geckos that are commonly bred in captivity, and depending on your experience might determine what kind of gecko you want to get. If you're just starting out, I would recommend a leopard gecko, or an African fat-tailed gecko. Leopard geckos are very commonly bred in captivity, and there are lots of different, what we call "morphs", different color phases, different patterns. There's albinos, there's high gold, high yellow. You can pretty much pick what you want 'em to look like...they probably make 'em. And leopard geckos are nice because they don't require a UV light. If fact, a lot of geckos do not require UV light, because they're nocturnal. Some geckos are diurnal, which means they're active during the day, and those animals would need full-spectrum UV light. But, you've got...Tokay geckos are an interesting gecko. They get fairly large, they're colorful. They don't tolerate being handled, they will bite. But they're fairly common in the pet trade. And we've got white line geckos, crocodile geckos, crested geckos, so there's lots of geckos out there, and they're available. And most of these are being bred in captivity for pets. And you can buy these at reptile expos, or from breeders on line, pet stores, there's a variety of places you can get geckos from. Some geckos need a lot of humidity, some are desert animals. So it all depends on which animal you want to take care of."