Reptilia · Squamata
Gonatodes humeralisGuichenot, 1855
Trinidad Gecko
Photograph by Philipp Hoenle, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
A tree-dwelling, day-active, meat-eating gecko from the Neotropic region, reaching 47 mm snout to vent.
Also called South American Clawed Gecko.
Once published as Gonatodes ferrugineus — those names reach this page.
Reptilia › Squamata › Sphaerodactylidae › Gonatodes
- Grows to
- 47mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Diurnal
- Lives
- Arboreal
Longer than 81% of all species in Sphaerodactylidae 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 17 to 150 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
40 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
- 2014
- Population trend
- Stable
The animal itself
- Limbs
- Four legs
- Venomous
- No
- Fangs
- None
- Preferred body temperature · chosen in a laboratory gradientmeasured
- 25.7°C
- Body temp in the wild · mean, when active
- 28.4–30.3°C83–87 °F
body temperature of active animals in nature
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 47mm1.75 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 35.3mm1.5 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 17mm0.7 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 2.56g0.09 oz
- Body mass at hatchingmeasured
- 0.2g0.01 oz
max 47 mm SVL (Feldman et al. 2016)
computed from length by a family-level allometric equation, not weighed
How it lives
- Diet
- Carnivorous
- How it hunts
- Sit and wait
- Active
- Diurnal
- Where it lives
- Arboreal
- Habitat
- Forest
- Biome
- Tropical & Subtropical Moist Broadleaf Forests
- Active season · months of the year
- 12months
- Region
- Neotropic
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Highest it lives · above sea level
- 1000m
- Range size
- 7,917,263km²
- Density
- 12.3per hectare
Invertebrates (e.g., gastropods and arthropods, Miranda and Andrade 2003) / omnivorous (Daza et al. 2009)/arthropods (de Figueiredo et al. 2020, details in de Oliveira et al. 2021b, Uchoa et al. 2022)
e.g., Mesquita et al. 2016, Fenker et al. 2020
Diurnal and nocturnal with artificial lighting (Dixon and Soini 1986), Diurnal (Higham et al. 2017, Moraes et al. 2016, Fenker et al. 2020, Senaris et al. 2018, de Oliveira et al. 2021b, Diaz-Florez and Alarcon-Naforo 2021, Uchoa et al. 2022)
Saxicolous and Arboreal / arboreal (Mesquita et al. 2016, Higham et al. 2017, Fenker et al. 2020, de Oliveira et al. 2021b) / partially arboreal (Moraes et al. 2016), semi arboreal mostly on tree trunks (Uchoa et al. 2022)
27-38 (Uchoa et al. 2022)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Sex decided by
- Genes, XX/XY
- Average clutch
- 1.34eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 1–2eggs
- Mean clutch
- 1–1.68eggs
- Clutches a year
- 1–14per year
- First breeds at
- 12months
I had 1 egg as average, Avila-Pires et al. 2010 write "2 at a time", Torres-Carvajal and Salazar-Valenzuela 2013: can have 2 in the oviduct - but in different stages, 1 (Vitt et al. 2008, Fenker et al. 2020, Senaris et al. 2018, de Oliveira et al. 2021b), means 1-1.68 (Mesquita et al. 2016), usually 1 (Uchoa et al. 2022)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Sauria
- Infraorder
- Gekkota
- Subspecies
- No
- Described by
- Guichenot
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- Yes
- Described in
- 1855
- Type locality
- Peru
Keeping one
7.5 in × 4.75 in × 7.5 in(19 × 12 × 19 cm)
Minimum length × width × height, for one animal. Bigger is always better.
The standard sizes climbing species at 4 × 2.5 × 4 times snout-vent length.
Lives in vegetation, so height and climbing structure matter more than floor space.
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 1.75 in (47 mm), at 4 × 2.5 × 4 times it, following the German federal welfare standard — how this is worked out.
In a laboratory thermal gradient this species settled at 78 °F (25.7 °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.
0kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 3 g, the heaviest recorded for Trinidad 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 female · snout to vent
- — Largest male · snout to vent
- — Largest female · shell length
- — Largest male · shell length
- — 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 · adult female, mean
- — Longest recorded life
- — 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
- — 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
- — Red List criteria
- — Home range · largest recorded
- — Active in
- — Lowest it lives · above sea level
Others in Sphaerodactylidae
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). Gonatodes humeralis. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/gonatodes-humeralis
@misc{gonatodes_humeralis_2026,
title = {Gonatodes humeralis},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/gonatodes-humeralis}
}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.