Roborowski care information needed

[Frogeye611]

I just purchased two Roborowski geckos, most likely juveniles. I have not been able to find a care sheet which gives information on adult lengths/weights, how to breed or how to care for them. I have been able to find info about Keyserlingi but not Roborowski. Any links that anyone knows of? Any help will be appreciated.

 

[Lordoftheswarms]

Where are they from? Where are the more common species of frog eyed geckos from? You might be able to treat them the same as the common species of frog eyed geckos.
I don't know much about this genus of geckos.

 

[mdmlss23]

tibet they can be keep at a warm spot of mid 90s adult length is 5-7in wieght for an adult is about 25g or more

 

[MattL]

My caresheet:

The Captive Care & Reproduction of the Tibetan Frog-eye Gecko (Teratoscincus roborowskii)
Behaviour: Tibetan frog-eye geckos are brown coloured geckos with darker brown or black spots. They reach a maximum of 6”-7”. These geckos are burrowers and will tunnel if the proper set-up is used. They have tiny hairs on their toes and feet to aid in digging. Nocturnal by nature, they are awake during most of the night.
They do not often vocalize and personally have never been heard from.
Life expectancy: No records have been documented on this species although a specimen kept by Matt is at least 6 years of age.
The Frog-eye For The Novice: Frog-eye geckos needs are more difficult to meet than say a leopard gecko. They should not be handled and a tunnelling vivarium (if used) is hard to upkeep.
Diet: T. roborowskii will readily accept all live feeder insects. Crickets, mealworms and roaches can be used to feed.
Make sure to dust food with a calcium powder with vitamin D3. Use a vitamin powder once or twice a week.
A shallow water dish can be filled very rarely, if one is even used. They absorb most water through their food.
Health: Frog-eyes are quite hardy and the most common health issue will be parasites from the wild-caught specimens. A reptile specialist will be able to help you with this problem.
Sexing: Male geckos will have hemipenile bulges underneath the tail base. Females may have a slight bulge but lifting the tail up and checking to see if there is one “hole” is the best way to check to see if the gecko is infact female. Males will have two “holes”.
Housing: A pair of roborowskii can be kept in a standard 15 gallon (24”X12”X12”) but more space will definitely be used and appreciated.
Strong, dark hides should be used to help keep the geckos feel safe. Place these in the sand so that they cannot fall on the gecko when they dig.
Temperatures should be kept around 88*F-92*F at the hottest part of the vivarium. UV lights are not needed.
Substrate should be 2 or more inches of small particle sand. They will dig and burrow under anything and everything so the more sand the merrier. Do not use calcium sand as it entices the gecko to ingest it.
They come from very dry areas and should be kept accordingly.

Males should not be kept together as fighting may evolve. If pairs are kept together, watch for bullying etc.
Morphs: There are no known morphs of Teratoscincus roborowskii. There is a close similarity between roborowskii and scincus.

Breeding: It’s a secret.

Incubation: Dry sand with little moisture. Egg hatched in roughly 70 days.

Rearing Hatchlings: Same as adults.

Other Teratoscincus:
Teratoscincus keyserlingii
Teratoscincus microlepis
Teratoscincus przewalskii
Teratoscincus scincus
Price and Availability (Canada): T. roborowskii are quite hard to find in Canada and are less commonly seen than both scincus and keyserlingii. Prices range between $40-$75.
Summary: An active and often almost personable gecko with great character. They are fun to watch and to care for. Makes an awesome addition to any gecko lover’s collection.

Copyright Matt Lutz 2010

 

[Frogeye611]

Thanks for your help. I am pretty sure that my new geckos are still juveniles...they are about 4 inches in total length. They are eating great, they appear to be captive born as they are very calm and will tolerate handling. I have them on fine sand, about 3/4" deep. With my previous group, I housed them on 2 inches of clay/sand mixture, but in the long run they did not live more than 4-5 months. I am not sure if this is because they spent most of their time in their tunnels and thus did not have more access to the food on the surface or if the specimens I had were wild-caught. I can almost guarantee that the previous group I had were wild caught and I did not treat them for parasites.

 

[ewagner]

Robowski

Although these are being sold as Tibetian Frog Eyed Geckos, they come from an area in China called the Turpan Depression. This is a huge area surrounded by mountians and most of it is below sea level, including a large lake. It is a major fruit producing area where it is irrigated, interestingly enough from an underground aquaduct built around the time they were working on the Great Wall of China. The Depression include considerable desert with summer temperature reaching 105 degrees F and winter temps dropping down to around 5 degrees f. This suggests that these lizards should see a winter cooling period to trigger reproduction. These are a burrowing gecko and there is some information to indicate they are solitary. I know that keeping several together will cause signs of stress. There is also some incidental information that they will eat some soft fruits...mine have not.

In his book on the Geckos of the USSR, M. Golobev suggests that this gecko is just a form of T. scincus and not a valid subspecies but having kept both, I don't agree, although I am not a taxonomist. I have not kept my group of robowoski long enough to have bred them, but I expect to, and will post any relevant information when I do. Good luck. Ernie Wagner

 

[geckoling]

ewagner: Great info! Assuming you found this in a paper somewhere?

Are any other Teratoscincus social? I've thought it'd be neat to set up a small group in a ant farm style enclosure.

Also this species probably does not need it any hotter than leopard geckos in captivity. In one paper I read on T. prezwalski the warmest body temperature recorded was in the mid 80's. They will actively forage in cold nights below 60 degrees!

 

[ewagner]

T robowoski

Geckoking...
I haven't found any literature on T. robowoski other than the reference in Golobev's book where he thought they were probably not a valid species. I don't know what he based this on, but it was probably physical characteristics and again, I don't agree, but I'm no taxonomist. I did track down their range in the internet and then it was just following threads of information such as the climate of the Turpan Depression. Also I have kept other teratoscincus in the past.
As far as robowoski behavior is concerned, I am less sure about their being solitary, although this makes some sense. I now have some set up alone and some in trios in complex cages with multiple hiding places. My efforts at cooling them did not go well. I took them down to 55 degrees F for a couple of weeks but then had to give up as they never settled down to brumate. They were not only active at night but then began coming out in the daytime. The one thing I know about brumation in captive herps is, that if you try to force it on them...that's when you lose animals. Mine are set up on sand with a heat strip at one end. They have a humidity chamber available but I have never seen them use it. They have a water dish and I mist the cage about once a week, but I suspect they get their moisture from the insects they eat. The heat tape goes off at night, so they see some temperature variation and I will have to see if this is enough to trigger reproduction. Also some of the smaller animals that were sold to me as females, developed hemipenal bulges when they got older, so I suspect they need to be almost adult to sex with certainty.
If anyone else comes up with useful information about these geckos, it would be great to see it posted. Ernie Wagner

 

[coronellla]

caring

i´ve got the roborowski at home (5 years) and unfortunately i´m sorry that i´ve ever bought him, even though i´ve had him since a hatchling he´s extremely aggressive and kills any other gecko that comes near him. even if its of the same species.. they´re mad

 

[MattL]

I was able to breed my roborowskii 2 years ago when I had them.

I can agree with the statement they are relatively solitary as I was only ever successful keeping the 2 largest geckos I had in a 1.1 pairing while on the others were housed individually. Robos are quick to fight each other.

As for brumation I dropped temperatures into the low 60's at night and mid 80's during the day. I also used a photoperiod of 8 hour days and 16 hour nights.

Lots of sand that they can tunnel in and lots of hiding places are essential.

 

[Moosenart]

I was able to breed my roborowskii 2 years ago when I had them.

I can agree with the statement they are relatively solitary as I was only ever successful keeping the 2 largest geckos I had in a 1.1 pairing while on the others were housed individually. Robos are quick to fight each other.

As for brumation I dropped temperatures into the low 60's at night and mid 80's during the day. I also used a photoperiod of 8 hour days and 16 hour nights.

Lots of sand that they can tunnel in and lots of hiding places are essential.

What kind of sand and how deep?

 

[billewicz]

Lot's of great observations here. Nice work guys.

I have four groups consisting of a a male with either 3 or 4 females. The only way I get this to work is not only the large digging area, but the tall layers of slate crevices and small cork bark tubes stacked up against the back of the enclosure all the way to the top. I have found that they will create a pecking order based on how high up in the enclosure and the 'territory' they have staked out within the wall.

I use an auto-misting system which essentially trickles down the slate layers on the wall. I have never seen them drink from a water bowl but they do take one or two licks from the trickle coming down the wall.

I'm convinced that the multi-female groups are not conducive to egg or hatchling survivability. Although I've had eggs hatch out in the enclosure and hatchlings survive. I suspect that most are being eaten long before I find them.

With this in mind, I'm going to split up the groups, break out pairs and pick-up a few males and see how the 1.1 set-up works.

Good luck and enjoy these fun little gecko.

Michael

 

[Moosenart]

What type of sand and how deep as a substraight?

 

[vic]

Just a hint- I think: they may need a LONG hibernation, since they are EXTREME Geckos, living in a very harsh habitat. Turpan Depression is not a place where only 5*F/-15*C occur... only the January average is -11*C at Urumqi, while absolute minima dropped under -40*C.
I keep Leopards only, but I would not keep these hardy gremlins without hibernation.

 

[ewagner]

T. robowski

I initially thought the same thing, but even taking them down into the 50's could not get them to become inactive. This year I was just about to try hibernating again when they started laying eggs. I had them set up as usual and had not done anything to alter cage conditions...when they just kicked in and started breeding again.. Go figure...Ernie

Just a hint- I think: they may need a LONG hibernation, since they are EXTREME Geckos, living in a very harsh habitat. Turpan Depression is not a place where only 5*F/-15*C occur... only the January average is -11*C at Urumqi, while absolute minima dropped under -40*C.
I keep Leopards only, but I would not keep these hardy gremlins without hibernation.

 

[vic]

Weird enough, Ernie, but glad you get them laying.

Now I have 5 Robo myself!! Supposedly 2.3.0, hopefully I will not see hemipenal bulges appearing on 2 of the "females", since they are quite small... a single one is about as large as the males, and quite sure about that. I don't know if 9cm snout-vent length is enough to be sure, but the other 2 "females" are only 7cm SV length- do you think it is still time to see them changing? Total length irrelevant, since all 3 females have regenerating tails.

About their adult length- I read about 15-17 cm- it is the SVL, or TL?
I saw once a documentary about Mongolia, and the guy traveling made a tent for the night. Well, for 2-3 seconds, in the night, a Gecko walked in front of his tent, and it was not too small- it's an old image for me, maybe wrong, but it had maximum 20cm. That one could be T. przevalskii, since they have max. 9,5cm "bodylength", as I read somewhere. They are not much different in size compared to roborowski, I think.

 

[ewagner]

Vic, My adults are just under 6 inches...probably 14 to 15 cm. When I first bought several from dealers, some of the "females" that were young adult size, went on to become males. So watch for aggression as your animals mature. I don't know if I mentioned, a sure sign of egg laying is when the cage looks like someone was working in there at night with a bulldozers, heaping up mounds of sand. And they like to lay on the heat source. I have also had eggs go full term in the cages and the adults don't seem to bother the babies, although I removed them when I found them. Ernie

 

[vic]

Thank for details, Ernie!

When you say 14-15 cm, is it the Total Length of the animal, or the Snout-Vent Length? If total- wich I suspect it is- then do I have a chance that my 2 small ones to be females, at that 7-7,5cm SVL?

Cannot post links, the sistem prevents them to another forums, but also to valuable information. Google search the next keys:

1- "On the Ecology of Przewalsky's Gecko (Teratoscincus przewalskii) in the. Transaltai Gobi, Mongolia."- appeared to me as the first result;
2- "scorpion mimicry teratoscincus roborowski"- appeared as the second result.

Very useful info to understand these hardy geckos.

 

[ewagner]

Vic, 14 to 15 cm is the overall length. Good luck! Ernie

 

[MattL]

What type of sand and how deep as a substraight?

I used regular play sand at a depth varying from 3-6 inches.