are Tokay geckos super loud?

[Dachindae]

I might be getting a tokay gecko off someone in town who is not taking care of it properly. I live in an apartment but I generally cannot hear any noise from my neighbors unless I'm outside of my apartment.
I'm just wondering if Tokay's get loud enough to be heard or become a problem in an apartment. I'm technically not supposed to have any pets but the manager is letting me have a few as long as no one complains about it.
I can also keep him at my parents house if need be. He will be in a basement room with all my other reptiles. [QT on the far side of the room, however...] but I don't want his barking/calling to keep my parents up either.

Just want to know HOW loud they can get and how often it happens, haha. I really want to give this guy a better home than he currently has.
These are the photos on the ad

 

[billewicz]

Females will not make any noise unless disturbed or threatened in which case they bark. No big deal. Now boyz on the other hand can call all night long if they feel the need to do so. But mostly in the early evening or early morning a few times especially if its going to rain soon.

Just imagine someone saying Tow-Kay, or Gek-Ko out loud 6 to 10 times in a slightly louder than normal voice. (Animated voice) In most cases he would still be hard to hear at all outside of your apartment.

(Also, as a side note, you are right, that enclosure is shameful torture for a Tokay!)

 

[Dachindae]

Thank you for the reply!
I might have a friend come and test the volume with me by literally saying "gek-ko" in a louder voice to see if it's too loud, haha.
Out in the hallway, I can hear almost everything that happens in my neighbors places, music, laughing, etc. But once I'm in my apartment I almost can't hear a thing unless they slam their door.

 

[billewicz]

Yeah, for some reason the front door is not as sound proof as the walls are in a lot of places.

I have 50 Tokay in a room next to my bedroom with Masonite walls. (50's modular home), I can barely hear them at night. Now I have a trio of Gray Tree Frogs down the hall in the living room and they can wake me up at night they are sooooo loud. Twice that of a Tokay in volume.

 

[XoVictoryXo]

you can always tell your neighbors -you have no idea what they are talking about... it must be an owl or a stray cat outside or something
Good luck with him!

 

[cassicat4]

Females will not make any noise unless disturbed or threatened in which case they bark. No big deal. Now boyz on the other hand can call all night long if they feel the need to do so. But mostly in the early evening or early morning a few times especially if its going to rain soon.

Just imagine someone saying Tow-Kay, or Gek-Ko out loud 6 to 10 times in a slightly louder than normal voice. (Animated voice) In most cases he would still be hard to hear at all outside of your apartment.

(Also, as a side note, you are right, that enclosure is shameful torture for a Tokay!)

Is there anything that one can do that would encourage or discourage the Tokay call? I'm assuming presenting him with a lady friend would certainly bring it out in him. But is there anything specifically that can trigger it, or is it all instincts?

As an aside, my current male has never called (and yes, I'm a light sleeper and would hear it, I get woken up by the sound of geckos jumping around their tanks!) but I'm about to receive another male soon whom I've been told is very vocal. Out of curiosity, can the sound of one calling trigger it in another?

 

[Aimless]

ha! yes, and no. they might call harder trying to find a girl than if they're gettin' lovin' already, right?

I had a male once who rarely called, and when he did it was quiet. I think it depends on the individual, though.

are you sure the gecko is a male? girls aren't very vocal at all, unless they're barking at you or some other threat, and it's nothing that would go through a wall?

oh, and Cassi - yeah, they'll be competing for girls that aren't there

 

[cassicat4]

oh, and Cassi - yeah, they'll be competing for girls that aren't there

Haha wonderful! Thanks.

Does being CB vs. WC have any bearing on their calling? The OP never mentioned what this one is, but if origins makes a difference...

 

[billewicz]

No, guys are guys! Just sayin'

 

[Ingo]

billewicz keeps lots of tokays......in the end, in such a situation, males have a tendency to call less loudly.
Also it depends on the tank and its opportunities. Experienced tokays are carefully selecting places with good acoustics and that can matter a lot.
I have tokays in my basement and in the ground floor of my house. I do sleep in the second floor and still hear males from both rooms calling at night.
I would rather compare the loudness of the call to a small dog barking (but the tokays display a lower pitch) than to normal speech.
In my last place, neighbours used to wonder, which strange nocturnal animal they can hear in their garden. I did not tell them that the sound came from my geckos...

P.S.: Size and age do make a difference, the larger the louder, the older, the lower pitched

 

[Marauderhex]

Experienced tokays are carefully selecting places with good acoustics and that can matter a lot.

This is exactly what happened to me. I gave Galactus (my 140 gram, 11+" male) some new wider PVC tubes to use as vertical hides. How does he repay me for this kindness? He uses them as megaphones to amplify his calling, which is most heavy from 8:30 at night and 4:30-5 in the morning. He now only has one piece of PVC left, and the other is a sound absorbing cork bark tube.

 

[XoVictoryXo]

:crackup:

 

[Riverside Reptiles]

Gecko Mating Call! LOUD - YouTube

 

[billewicz]

Gecko Mating Call! LOUD - YouTube

Nice recording except for the whispered WTF! :biggrin:

 

[Riverside Reptiles]

LOL I didn't even notice that the first time I listened to it.
I guess that would be kind of a wtf moment if you heard that in the middle of the night and didn't know what it was!

 

[Aimless]

that's hilarious

when my leachie girl started calling about a year ago it took me forever to figure out it was her. I was thinking it was my male crestie calling to the ladies in the room, but the noise just wasn't anything I'd heard in over 5 years of keeping them. it was very startling.

 

[billewicz]

(Off Topic) Actually the first time I heard our Gray Tree frogs bark I had to get up and see what it was. It was a WTF moment this past summer.

I'd had juvies in the basement last year and knew they had a small tree frog bark in the spring and when it rains. Nothing out of the ordinary. This year they got a much larger enclosure upstairs with a 10 gallon fish tank set up inside as their pool.

They are now almost 3" long now and boy are they friggin' loud. Easily twice that of my biggest, oldest Tokay or any of the Gekko smithi.