Reptilia · Squamata
Diplodactylus conspicillatusLucas & Frost, 1897
Burrow-plug Gecko
Photograph by Third Silence Nature Photography, CC BY, via Wikimedia Commons
A ground-dwelling, nocturnal, meat-eating gecko from the Australo-Pacific region, reaching 68 mm snout to vent.
Also called Variable Fat-tailed Gecko.
Reptilia › Squamata › Diplodactylidae › Diplodactylus
- Grows to
- 68mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Nocturnal
- Lives up to
- 3.2years
Longer than 57% of all species in Diplodactylidae 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 28.8 to 370 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
44 sourced facts, each taken from a named scientific dataset. How to read these.
Cited from a dataset unless a row is marked otherwise.
Two of these figures disagree
Density (lowest recorded) is given as 39, and Density (highest recorded) as 38 — but the lowest density recorded cannot be above the highest. They come from different sources and both are shown exactly as those sources give them.
Standing in the world
- Still living
- Extant
- Conservation status
- Least Concern
- Status assessed · the year the Red List last looked
- 2017
- Population trend
- Stable
The animal itself
- Limbs
- Four legs
- Venomous
- No
- Fangs
- None
- Longest recorded life
- 3.2years
- Preferred body temperature · chosen in a laboratory gradientmeasured
- 34.3°C
- Body temperature when active · measured in the wild
- 31°C88 °F
- Body temp in the wild · mean, when active
- 27.7–34.3°C82–94 °F
Greer 2005: "In the field, the species can live as long as 1152 days (3.15 years) (Read 1999).", Read 1999: 1152 days between captures
mean body temperature of active individuals in nature
body temperature of active animals in nature
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 68mm2.75 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 58.5mm2.25 in
- Largest female · snout to vent
- 58.5mm2.25 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 25.5mm1 in
- Largest juvenile · snout to vent
- 25.5mm1 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 6.28g0.22 oz
- Body mass at hatchingmeasured
- 0.35g0.01 oz
Shai Meiri, unpublished
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
- Sit and wait
- Active
- Nocturnal
- Where it lives
- Terrestrial
- Habitat
- Desert, Grassland, Savanna, Shrubland
- Biome
- Deserts & Xeric Shrublands
- Active season · months of the year
- 12months
- Region
- Australo-Pacific
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Elevation · above sea level
- 10–550m
- Range size
- 1,922,014km²
- Density
- 38–39per hectare
insects (termite specialist, Wilson and Swan 2008, Read 1999, Wilson and Swan 2010, Wilson 2005, Brown 2012)
e.g., Mesquita et al. 2016
e.g., Mesquita et al. 2016, Johansen 2012, Swan 2020
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Average clutch
- 1.99eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 1–2eggs
- Mean clutch
- 1.98–2eggs
- Clutches in a year
- 4per year
- Clutches a year
- 3–5per year
- First breeds at
- 10months
2 (e.g., Brown 2012, Pianka 2014), mean 1.975 (Mesquita et al. 2016), mean 2 (Henle 1991)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Sauria
- Infraorder
- Gekkota
- Subspecies
- No
- Described by
- Lucas & Frost
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- No
- Described in
- 1897
- Type locality
- Australia
Keeping one
10.5 in × 10.5 in × 6.75 in(27 × 27 × 17 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.
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 2.75 in (68 mm), at 4 × 4 × 2.5 times it, following the German federal welfare standard — how this is worked out.
In a laboratory thermal gradient this species settled at 94 °F (34.3 °C).
Preferred body temperature, recorded in a laboratory gradient where the animal could choose freely. A measurement of the animal, not a setting for a thermostat.
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 Burrow-plug 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 · adult female, mean
- — Eats arthropods
- — Eats vertebrates
- — Eats plant matter
- — How the young develop
- — Gestation or incubation
- — 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
- — Colour on the back
- — Pattern on the back
- — Pupil
- — Sex decided by
- — Red List criteria
- — Home range · largest recorded
- — Active in
Others in Diplodactylidae
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). Diplodactylus conspicillatus. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/diplodactylus-conspicillatus
@misc{diplodactylus_conspicillatus_2026,
title = {Diplodactylus conspicillatus},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/diplodactylus-conspicillatus}
}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.