[Silvershark]

I'm getting concerned about my oldest Stenodactylus geckos. When I originally bought her there was another Steno with her who used to always be out basking. As I was new to the species and only had the two I never really thought this was unusual and everything else was normal, she was underweight when I got her but soon she was at a healthy size, she was bright, alert and doing everything as per usual. I was told that they were 6 months old, but they certainly weren't, both were adults and the basking one was a pretty big in Steno scale! After a bit of research I came to believe they were in fact WC so their age was completely unknown. Anyway, she died unexpectedly and since I've had more Steno's, I realise this basking behaviour is unusual.

But now...

My oldest Steno has started basking a lot from the light in my mourning geckos vivarium. Aside from this out of the ordinary behaviour, she seems fine and is eating well, looks happy enough. She's moving about fine and always looks up when she spots me coming into the room. I do think she feels quite secure in her basking spot as there are plants either side. It started out being just every now and then, but now she's there more and more frequently.

Has anyone had any other old Steno's that have displayed this behaviour or know of any reason why she has suddenly started to baskin the light? She's never done this before in the 4 years I've had her and both of the other geckos who are 4 years old are behaving normally.

I'm wondering if I should give her a basking light as there must be some reason why she is feeling the need to bask all the time?

[MonteQ's]

My groups are still pretty young for the most part...so I can't help you with the age part.

My first guess would be to double check your temperatures. Are you providing them with another source of heat UTH etc.? With winter being here, the ambient room temperatures may have dropped enough to send her searching for heat. Gravid females will rarely leave the area around the UTH in my collection. With the exception of feeding time which is a free for all...This may be another reason she's basking regularly.

I rather doubt that she'd be seeking uv. But if there's no heat value where she's basking, it might be a good idea to check your supplementation schedule too. Is she laying? If so, does she have decent calcium reserves?

If none of this makes sense, I'd start looking at bullying or illness as other reasons she may be getting ostracized from the group.

[Silvershark]

Originally Posted by MonteQ's

My groups are still pretty young for the most part...so I can't help you with the age part.

My first guess would be to double check your temperatures. Are you providing them with another source of heat UTH etc.? With winter being here, the ambient room temperatures may have dropped enough to send her searching for heat. Gravid females will rarely leave the area around the UTH in my collection. With the exception of feeding time which is a free for all...This may be another reason she's basking regularly.

I rather doubt that she'd be seeking uv. But if there's no heat value where she's basking, it might be a good idea to check your supplementation schedule too. Is she laying? If so, does she have decent calcium reserves?

If none of this makes sense, I'd start looking at bullying or illness as other reasons she may be getting ostracized from the group.

They have a heatmat and temps are all normal (their is no light in their vivarium, it's in the other vivarium), I have the male seperated (has been for over 2 years now) so she isn't gravid. There is only one other female and I haven't noticed anything going on between them (i've been around a lot keeping an eye on my mourning geckos) and supplementation and everything is normal. She seems fine in herself, bright as always and is quick at catching herself some dinner, just she's hanging around in an unusual place leaving her normal hide empty. I'm going to try and block the light from the other vivarium, see if that makes her shift herself. They have been getting fed locusts rather than crickets over the last few weeks as their crickets have been out of stock from the usual supplier, I tend to find they can get lazy when they are being fed locusts so maybe that has something to do with it.

[MonteQ's]

It might well be the change in food stuffs. I've offered worms to some of the babies in lieu of crickets when I ran out. They do seem to have a little more trouble digesting some of them. I found this a while ago reading up on Uroplatus, it's a bit off topic, but an interesting read with regard to the effects from a change in food source:

http://jvdi.org/cgi/reprint/17/1/71.pdf

If the link doesn't work, search Degenerative Myopathy in Uroplatus

[Silvershark]

Well, she's gone back to sleeping in her usual hide again! Strange little gecko!

[MonteQ's]

Lol. Glad to hear it.