L. lugubris behaviour

[GermanDude]

I am more frequently observing strange behaviour in one of my L. lugubris populations, which I would like to have another opinion about:
The tank with L. lugubris is standing about 10 cm away from another one with H. frenatus. The sides of both tanks arent covered with anything so it is possible to look from one tank into the other, but I dont know if gecko-eyes are good enough to look through two 4mm glasses...

For one week now, I see the H. frenatus sitting on their usual branches eyeing the other tank, what I can understand since young L. lugubris do seem to be possible prey.
In the other tank the L. lugubris are sitting on the glass looking at the H. frenatus, with wiggeling tails.
I doubt that the L. lugubris are preying on the H. frenatus :coverlaugh: but I could not find any information on protective behaviour in L. lugubris against other predators.

Does anyone of you have read anything about this? Am I wrong thinking that geckoeyes arent good enough to look through two 4 mm glasses with 10 cm. distance between?

(I seperated the two tanks - but i am still wondering about the wierd actions of my old L. lugubris)

 

[stickytoed!]

Gecko eyesight is pretty good, but maybe not good enough for each species to really be able to tell 'who's who' in the other enclosure. At that distance, and if the clarity of the glass is less than perfect, they could possibly be thinking quite a few different things.

If there are juvenile L. lugubris in with the adults, it possibly could be a perceived situation of 'predator and prey.' I have L. lugubris that have cannibalized their young, but the same animal will guard her eggs. Some are fine living with with juveniles (I no longer keep any less less than four months with adults), but some adults will bully the young. I have never really seen any protective behavior like you speak of, but I would not rule out its possibility.

Are the H. frenatus male? They may think the L. lugubris are female frenatus, and vice versa. H. frenatus is a more aggressive species than L. lugubris, and it's possible the lugubris have picked up on this through body language. That would explain the behavior of the lugubris as well.

They may not be able to entirely tell if they are the same species, male or female, but they can probably perceive eachother's body language quite fine. I think this is a case of a lot of curiosity and uncertainty on both sides.

 

[Tamara]

great reply, stickytoed!
I couldn't agree more.

Poor eyesight, for an animal the size of L. lugubris or H. frenatus, would mean nothing more than a death sentence in their natural habitat.., and a case of evolution messing up.
They can very well see trough 2 sheets of glass, and to reduce stres levels to a minimum you might want to consider putting some sort of non-transparent divider between both enclosures.

 

[GermanDude]

When I was reading up on eyesight I figured that noctural geckos might have great eyes, seeing all in grey and probably seeing movement up to a certain distance. I did not suspect them to see through 2x 4mm glas with up to 44 cm distance (That was the distance I measured until they stopped their behaviour).

I have never had any population that showed agression towards their young, only once saw an adult eat the dead fetus out of an egg that did not hatch.... Therefor I am still itneresting if L. lugubris shows protective behaviour towards their young.

When measuring the distance between both tanks until the behaviour stopped was interestingly 44 cm for L. lugubris and 56 for H. frenatus. They are now standing 5 cm apart form each other but have a blak sheet of plastiv between the tanks.