I am totally and completely baffled... In all my years I have never had a leopard gecko escape. Nor have I had one eaten by another... So, I am looking for theories. I have had day geckos take advantage of me cleaning their terrarium and take off... I have had monitors muscle their way out of seemingly strong enclosures... But this, I cannot for the life of me figure out:
I just took three adult female leopard geckos in a trade. I brought them home in a cardboard box. They were climbing and scratching much more than any others that I had ever had before - not thrilled to be handled, either. Now, I usually like to have new homes all set up and ready to go, before I introduce any new reptile... This was very last minute and, for the first time, I didn't even have a spare ten gallon laying around. I was going to do it right and get a nice setup tomorrow... In the meantime - for the last two days - I have them in plastic sterilite container. I poked some decent sized air holes in the top with a hot screwdriver... More than enough ventilation - but certainly not big enough to crawl through. I put some paper towels and a cardboard hide... I mean these are Leopard geckos... Not particularly high-maintenance, right? I put them in the reptile room in my house which stays between 76-82 degrees ambient. They were all (three, mind you) a little thin, so I fed them some wax worms... All three ate. Did I mention there are three, at this point? I went to feed them tonight and there are two. Just two. Not three... Two leopard geckos. Now, I will say that although the lid snaps on both sides, you could technically lift it a bit at the corners. I mean... If I pry it up with all my strength, you can get about 1/4 inch of gap, maybe. I have had ball pythons that couldn't get out of these... I cannot believe it pushed its way out. I cannot believe it was eaten by one of the others - They were all the same size, and no one looks super-fat. And I can't believe that I would not have noticed a bright yellow gecko fling himself from the box and take off across the room... Did someone break into my house, disregard the computer, TV, music equipment and cash... and just steal one leopard gecko????
So... Now that we all know the only realistic answer here is magic... Does anyone know where an escaped leopard gecko might wish to hide?
I just took three adult female leopard geckos in a trade. I brought them home in a cardboard box. They were climbing and scratching much more than any others that I had ever had before - not thrilled to be handled, either. Now, I usually like to have new homes all set up and ready to go, before I introduce any new reptile... This was very last minute and, for the first time, I didn't even have a spare ten gallon laying around. I was going to do it right and get a nice setup tomorrow... In the meantime - for the last two days - I have them in plastic sterilite container. I poked some decent sized air holes in the top with a hot screwdriver... More than enough ventilation - but certainly not big enough to crawl through. I put some paper towels and a cardboard hide... I mean these are Leopard geckos... Not particularly high-maintenance, right? I put them in the reptile room in my house which stays between 76-82 degrees ambient. They were all (three, mind you) a little thin, so I fed them some wax worms... All three ate. Did I mention there are three, at this point? I went to feed them tonight and there are two. Just two. Not three... Two leopard geckos. Now, I will say that although the lid snaps on both sides, you could technically lift it a bit at the corners. I mean... If I pry it up with all my strength, you can get about 1/4 inch of gap, maybe. I have had ball pythons that couldn't get out of these... I cannot believe it pushed its way out. I cannot believe it was eaten by one of the others - They were all the same size, and no one looks super-fat. And I can't believe that I would not have noticed a bright yellow gecko fling himself from the box and take off across the room... Did someone break into my house, disregard the computer, TV, music equipment and cash... and just steal one leopard gecko????
So... Now that we all know the only realistic answer here is magic... Does anyone know where an escaped leopard gecko might wish to hide?
