Reptilia · Squamata
Gigarcanum delcourtiBauer & Russell, 1986
Kawekaweau (Gecko)
Photograph by Lamiot, CC BY-SA, via Wikimedia Commons
A nocturnal gecko from the Australo-Pacific region, reaching 370 mm snout to vent.
Once published as Hoplodactylus delcourti — those names reach this page.
Reptilia › Squamata › Diplodactylidae › Gigarcanum
- Grows to
- 370mm
- greatest recorded
- Active
- Nocturnal
- Weighs up to
- 1114.3g
- greatest
- Red List
- Extinct
Longer than 99% 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
21 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
- Extinct
- Conservation status
- Extinct
- Status assessed · the year the Red List last looked
- 2018
The animal itself
- Limbs
- Four legs
- Venomous
- No
- Fangs
- None
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 370mm14.5 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 1114.3g2.5 lb
- Body mass · adult female, meanmeasured
- 140.2g4.9 oz
max 370 mm SVL (Feldman et al. 2016)
computed from length by a family-level allometric equation, not weighed
How it lives
- Active
- Nocturnal
- Region
- Australo-Pacific
- Mainland or island
- Found only on islands
Gamble et al. 2015, but how would they know?
Breeding
- Average clutch
- 2
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 2eggs
the single figure reported — Meiri, 2024, Glob. Ecol. Biogeogr., 33:e13812
1 (Aaron Bauer, pers. comm. 20.2.2019)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Sauria
- Infraorder
- Gekkota
- Subspecies
- No
- Described by
- Bauer & Russell
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- No
- Described in
- 1986
- Type locality
- New Caledonia
Keeping one
Kawekaweau (Gecko) is assessed as Extinct on the IUCN Red List. No living animal is known. Anything below describes what was recorded of the species while it existed, and it is here because a reference that quietly drops a species it has lost is a worse record than one that keeps it.
No enclosure size, temperature or feeding figure is given for this species. What is recorded about the animal stays on this page above; advice on keeping one does not, because there is none to keep.
Feeding
100kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 1,114 g, the heaviest recorded for Kawekaweau (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 female mean
- — 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 female · snout to vent
- — Largest male · snout to vent
- — Largest female · shell length
- — Largest male · shell length
- — Hatchling length · snout to vent
- — Hatchling length · nose to tail
- — Largest juvenile · snout to vent
- — Largest juvenile · shell length
- — Egg length
- — Egg width
- — Body mass · a typical adult
- — Body mass at hatching
- — Longest recorded life
- — Preferred body temperature · chosen in a laboratory gradient
- — Body temperature when active · measured in the wild
- — Diet
- — Eats arthropods
- — Eats vertebrates
- — Eats plant matter
- — How it hunts
- — Where it lives
- — Reproduction
- — How the young develop
- — Gestation or incubation
- — Mean clutch · smallest reported
- — Mean clutch · largest reported
- — Clutches in a year
- — Clutches a year · fewest
- — Clutches a year · most
- — 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
- — Population trend
- — Red List criteria
- — Biome
- — Active season · shortest recorded
- — Active season · longest recorded
- — Density · lowest recorded
- — Density · highest recorded
- — Home range · largest recorded
- — Habitat
- — Active in
- — Lowest it lives · above sea level
- — Highest it lives · above sea level
- — Range size
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). Gigarcanum delcourti. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/gigarcanum-delcourti
@misc{gigarcanum_delcourti_2026,
title = {Gigarcanum delcourti},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/gigarcanum-delcourti}
}Sources
- Meiri, S. (2024). SquamBase — a database of squamate (Reptilia: Squamata) traits. Global Ecology and Biogeography. Public domain (CC0).
- Moura, M. R. et al. TetrapodTraits: a database of 33,281 tetrapod species. Used under CC BY 4.0. Observed values only; this encyclopedia does not publish its imputed predictions.
- Catalogue of Life (dataset 3LR), used under CC BY.
- Oskyrko, O. et al. (2024). ReptTraits: a comprehensive dataset of ecological traits in reptiles. Scientific Data. Used under CC BY 4.0.