Reptilia · Squamata
Hemidactylus flaviviridisRüppell, 1835
Yellow-belly gecko
Photograph by Kseniia Marianna Prondzynska, CC BY, via iNaturalist
An active by day or night, meat-eating gecko from the Oriental region, reaching 95 mm snout to vent.
Also called Northern House Gecko.
Reptilia › Squamata › Gekkonidae › Hemidactylus
- Grows to
- 95mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Cathemeral
- Lives up to
- 11years
Longer than 87% 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
41 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
- 2012
- Population trend
- Increasing
The animal itself
- Limbs
- Four legs
- Venomous
- No
- Fangs
- None
- Longest recorded life
- 11years
- Body temperature when active · measured in the wild
- 27.2°C81 °F
- Body temp in the wild · mean, when active
- 27.2°C
Werner et al. 1993
mean body temperature of active individuals in nature
body temperature of active animals in nature
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 95mm3.75 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 62.9mm2.5 in
- Largest female · snout to vent
- 62.9mm2.5 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 25.5mm1 in
- Largest juvenile · snout to vent
- 25.5mm1 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 16.54g0.58 oz
max 95 mm (e.g., Carranza et al. 2021)
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
- Active foraging
- Active
- Cathemeral
- Where it lives
- Arboreal, saxicolous
- Habitat
- Rocky
- Biome
- Deserts & Xeric Shrublands
- Region
- Oriental
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Lowest it lives · above sea level
- 720m
- Highest it lives · above sea level
- 1300m
- Range size
- 3,803,548km²
Arthropods (e.g., Kastle et al. 2013, Das and Das 2017, Kamali 2020, Carranza et al. 2021) and small lizards, insects (Singh et al. 2021)
Active foraging
(Leviton et al. 1992, Gallagher 1971) / nocturnal (Hornby 1996, Schmitz and Higham 2018, Singh et al. 2021, Fasola et al. 2020, Kamali 2020) / mostly nocturnal (Werner 1973, Gardner 2013, Werner 2016) / quite active by day (Gholamifard et al. 2010, see also Sengupta and Nigam 2018), "A mainly nocturnal species, it can also be seen during the day" (Carranza et al. 2021)
Saxicolous and Arboreal - edificarian in Iran (Gholamifard et al. 2010), Saxicolous and edificarian (Masood and Asiry 2012), scansorial, arboreal and edificarian (Werner 2016), "strictly a house gecko in Iraq, found on both outside and inside walls and ceilings of inhabited and abandoned buildings." (Mohammed et al. 2005), edificarian (Carranza et al. 2021)
generally below 1000 (Srinivasulu et al. 2014), up to 960 (Kastle et al. 2013), 0-700 (Carranza et al. 2021), 0-1300 (Spawls et al. 2023)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Average clutch
- 2eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 1–3eggs
- Mean clutch
- 2eggs
- Clutches in a year
- 2per year
- Clutches a year
- 1–3per year
- First breeds at
- 10months
2, rarely 3 (Masroor 2012), pairs (Gardner 2013), 2 rarely 1 (Werner 2016), 2-3 (Das and Das 2017), 2 (Carranza et al. 2021)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Sauria
- Infraorder
- Gekkota
- Subspecies
- No
- Described by
- Rüppell
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- No
- Described in
- 1835
- Type locality
- Eritrea
Keeping one
15 in × 15 in × 15 in(38 × 38 × 38 cm)
Minimum length × width × height, for one animal. Bigger is always better.
The standard sizes ground species at 4 × 4 × 2.5 and climbing species at 4 × 2.5 × 4 times snout-vent length.
Recorded both on the ground and climbing, so this is the larger of the two rules in every dimension.
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 3.75 in (95 mm), at 4 × 4 × 4 times it, following the German federal welfare standard — how this is worked out.
Active animals measured in the wild averaged 81 °F (27.2 °C).
Mean body temperature of active individuals measured in nature. 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.
2kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 17 g, the heaviest recorded for Yellow-belly 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
- — Body mass at hatching
- — Preferred body temperature · chosen in a laboratory gradient
- — 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
- — Active season · shortest recorded
- — Active season · longest recorded
- — Density · lowest recorded
- — Density · highest recorded
- — Home range · largest recorded
- — Active in
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). Hemidactylus flaviviridis. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/hemidactylus-flaviviridis
@misc{hemidactylus_flaviviridis_2026,
title = {Hemidactylus flaviviridis},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/hemidactylus-flaviviridis}
}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.