Herp of the Day: Eublepharis macularius

My first, and best, gecko is Sobe the Leopard Gecko. I inherited Sobe from my friend Jenn at the start of my sophomore year. Sobe has a fantastic disposition, being very tame and practically begging for food. I take her on many education programs with the Cornell Herpetological Society.

She's smug because she knows she is the best

So happy chowing mealworms
Investigating the cricket bin

Sobe doing some educating

Here's a sequence of her shedding. Geckos tend to shed in one or several large pieces, eating the shed as they go. Here she gets the shed started on some rocks, then starts pulling off those yummy pieces.


Sobe is a wild-type Leopard Gecko, or about as close to wild-type as you see in the hobby today. She's yellow and has less black mottling than I would expect for a pure wild-type (you can see some first-generation young here). I bred Sobe for one season with my friend Amanda's male Frankie. I forget the exact morph name for Frankie, other than pretty!

Frankie

The unhappy couple

Their coupling gave me several clutches of eggs, from which I hatched three beautiful young, whom I named Audubon, Piha, and Sabine.

A gravid Sobe lets her belly hang free

The eggs are soft and leathery and are laid in clutches of two

The young start off boldly banded and patterned, but as they age the black fades and orange mixes in, showing their father's blood. They grow quite quickly!

Fresh from the egg

One Week

Two weeks - exploring the world

One to two months - less black and more color

3 months - the teenage months

I ended up giving away these young ones before the matured (at around a year old) but watching them grow was a great experience. I miss them and wish I could find out what they look like today. Just a few weeks ago I was forced to finally give up my precious Sobe as well, as I have to give up my gecko collection before my Venezuela work. She was the sweetest gecko and I will dearly miss her. I don't think I could find another Leopard like her.