Reptilia · Squamata
Cyrtopodion scabrumHeyden, 1827
Rough bent-toed gecko
Photograph by Barbod Safae, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
A nocturnal, meat-eating gecko from the Saharo-Sindian region, reaching 65 mm snout to vent.
Also called Common Tuberculate Ground gecko, Rough-tailed Bowfoot Gecko.
Once published as Cyrtodactylus basoglui, Cyrtodactylus scaber, Cyrtopodion scaber, Gymnodactylus scaber, Tenuidactylus scaber — those names reach this page.
Reptilia › Squamata › Gekkonidae › Cyrtopodion
- Grows to
- 65mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Nocturnal
- Lives up to
- 7years
Longer than 58% of all geckos anyone has measured.
The bar is the rank itself: its length is the share of the family this animal exceeds. The chart below is the family’s real spread, on a logarithmic scale because body length here runs from 23 to 220 mm. The solid rule is this animal. Every bar is a count of real species, and nothing on this figure is estimated.
What is known
39 sourced facts, each taken from a named scientific dataset. How to read these.
Cited from a dataset unless a row is marked otherwise.
Standing in the world
- Still living
- Extant
- Conservation status
- Least Concern
- Status assessed · the year the Red List last looked
- 2016
- Population trend
- Stable
The animal itself
- Limbs
- Four legs
- Venomous
- No
- Fangs
- None
- Longest recorded life
- 7years
Amitai and Bouskila 2001: 4, Werner et al. 1993: 3 years, 10 months; Slavens and Slavens 1999: 3 years, 10 months, see Hughes 1988, maximum 7 in femles, 6 in males (Altunisik et al. 2022)
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 65mm2.5 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 45.1mm1.75 in
- Largest female · snout to vent
- 45.1mm1.75 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 23mm0.9 in
- Largest juvenile · snout to vent
- 23mm0.9 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 5.8g0.2 oz
- Body mass · adult female, meanmeasured
- 2.5g0.09 oz
max 65 mm SVL (Feldman et al. 2016)
snout-vent length; the source column mixes this with straight carapace length
computed from length by a family-level allometric equation, not weighed
How it lives
- Diet
- Carnivorous
- How it hunts
- Mixed
- Active
- Nocturnal
- Where it lives
- Saxicolous, terrestrial
- Habitat
- Desert, Rocky, Shrubland
- Biome
- Deserts & Xeric Shrublands
- Active season · months of the year
- 9–10months
- Region
- Saharo-Sindian
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Highest it lives · above sea level
- 1800m
- Range size
- 4,040,479km²
- Home range · largest recorded
- 30.6m2
Arthropods (e.g., Kamali 2020, Carranza et al. 2021, Bar et al. 2021)
Active foraging / sit and wait (Ibrahim 2013, Spawls et al. 2023)
Diurnal (e.g., Masood and Asiry 2012)/crepuscular and Nocturnal (Anderson, Werner 2016)/Nocturnal (Minton, Disi et al., Gallagher 1971, Baha El Din 2006, Jongbloed 2000, Hornby 1996, Das 2002, Werner 1998, Werner 1973, Kamali 2020, Carranza et al. 2021, Ibrahim 2013: 85% active in full darkness, 9% after sunset but with some light, otehrs with artificial light), Nocturnal (personal observation, Mohammed et al. 2015, Bar et al. 2021, Spawls et al. 2023)
Terrestrial and Saxicolous (mostly saxiciolous - Ibrahim 2013), saxicoilous and edificarian (Masood and Asiry 2012), Terrestrial (Mohammed et al. 2015, personal observation), edificarian (Disi and Amr 1998), terrestrial and edificarian (Carranza et al. 2021, Shai Meiri, pers. obs.), terrestrial and wall climbing (Bar et al. 2021, Spawls et al. 2023, sm pers. obs in Hatzeva)
190-290 (Agarwal et al. 2015), 615-1091 (Esmaeili-Rineh et al. 2016), 0-500 (Carranza et al. 2021), 12-90 (S. Meiri, pers. Obs.)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Average clutch
- 1.96eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 1–2eggs
- Mean clutch
- 1.92–2eggs
- Clutches a year
- 2–3per year
2 (e.g., Anderson 1963, Gardner 2013, Hibbitts and Hibbitts 2015), 1-2 (Ibrahim 2013, Carranza et al. 2021, Bar et al. 2021, Spawls et al. 2023), 1-2, mean 1.92 (Goldberg 2017)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Sauria
- Infraorder
- Gekkota
- Subspecies
- No
- Described by
- Heyden
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- Yes
- Described in
- 1827
- Type locality
- Egypt
Keeping one
10 in × 10 in × 6.5 in(26 × 26 × 16 cm)
Minimum length × width × height, for one animal. Bigger is always better.
The standard sizes ground-dwelling species at 4 × 4 × 2.5 times snout-vent length.
Lives on rock, so stable hard surfaces and basking ledges suit it.
Mindestanforderungen an die Haltung von Reptilien (Sachverständigengutachten), German Federal Ministry for Nutrition, Agriculture and Forestry, Animal Welfare Division, 10 January 1997. The standard states these floor areas are recommendations rather than binding limits.
From this animal’s own snout-vent length of 2.5 in (65 mm), at 4 × 4 × 2.5 times it, following the German federal welfare standard — how this is worked out.
No preferred body temperature has been recorded for Rough bent-toed gecko. Rather than repeat a number from a care sheet, this page leaves it out.
Feeding
A prey item should be no wider than the space between the animal's eyes.
Widely used across reptile husbandry references. The stated reason is that the gap approximates the width of the throat, so wider prey is associated with impaction. This is established practice, not a measurement.
1kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 6 g, the heaviest recorded for Rough bent-toed gecko — so it is the top of the range, not a figure for a particular animal. Weigh yours and the number will be lower.
An upper estimate, not a feeding target, and not veterinary advice. The equation covers only what an animal burns staying alive, so a growing, gravid or recovering animal needs more — and it was measured on wild animals, which move far more than one in an enclosure. Body condition and a vet who knows the species are what a feeding decision should rest on. Where this comes from.
What nobody knows
These are not gaps in our research. No scientific dataset records them for this species — and saying so is information you cannot get from a reference that simply leaves a field out.
- — Length snout to vent · adult male mean
- — Length snout to vent · adult mean
- — Length nose to tail · greatest recorded
- — Female length · mean, nose to tail
- — Length nose to tail · adult male mean
- — Length nose to tail · adult mean
- — Largest male · snout to vent
- — Largest female · shell length
- — Largest male · shell length
- — Hatchling length · nose to tail
- — Largest juvenile · shell length
- — Egg length
- — Egg width
- — Body mass · a typical adult
- — Body mass at hatching
- — Preferred body temperature · chosen in a laboratory gradient
- — Body temperature when active · measured in the wild
- — Eats arthropods
- — Eats vertebrates
- — Eats plant matter
- — How the young develop
- — Gestation or incubation
- — Clutches in a year
- — First breeds from · youngest recorded
- — First breeds by · oldest recorded
- — Hatchling length · smallest recorded
- — Hatchling length · largest recorded
- — Age at first breeding · female
- — Mature from · youngest recorded
- — Mature by · oldest recorded
- — Size at maturity · smallest recorded
- — Size at maturity · largest recorded
- — Body temp in the wild · lowest mean recorded
- — Body temp in the wild · highest mean recorded
- — Colour on the back
- — Pattern on the back
- — Pupil
- — Sex decided by
- — Red List criteria
- — Density · lowest recorded
- — Density · highest recorded
- — Active in
- — Lowest it lives · above sea level
Others in Gekkonidae
Take this data
Everything on this page is available as data under CC BY 4.0 — use it freely, credit it, no permission needed.
This species as JSON · the whole dataset
Cite this page
The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia (2026). Cyrtopodion scabrum. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/cyrtopodion-scabrum
@misc{cyrtopodion_scabrum_2026,
title = {Cyrtopodion scabrum},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/cyrtopodion-scabrum}
}Sources
- Meiri, S. (2024). SquamBase — a database of squamate (Reptilia: Squamata) traits. Global Ecology and Biogeography. Public domain (CC0).
- Oskyrko, O. et al. (2024). ReptTraits: a comprehensive dataset of ecological traits in reptiles. Scientific Data. Used under CC BY 4.0.
- Catalogue of Life (dataset 3LR), used under CC BY.