Reptilia · Squamata
Hoplodactylus duvauceliiDuméril & Bibron, 1836
Duvaucel's gecko
Photograph by Oscar Dove, CC BY, via iNaturalist
A nocturnal, omnivorous gecko from the Australo-Pacific region, reaching 165 mm snout to vent.
Once published as Woodworthia duvaucelii — those names reach this page.
Reptilia › Squamata › Diplodactylidae › Hoplodactylus
- Grows to
- 165mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Omnivorous
- Active
- Nocturnal
- Lives up to
- 50years
Longer than 98% 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
42 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
Body mass (a typical adult) is given as 118, and Body mass (greatest) as 94.4 — but a typical adult cannot outweigh the heaviest one ever recorded. They come from different sources and both are shown exactly as those sources give them.
Standing in the world
- Still living
- Extant
- Conservation status
- Near Threatened
- Status assessed · the year the Red List last looked
- 2012
- Population trend
- Stable
- Red List criteria
- D2
The animal itself
- Limbs
- Four legs
- Venomous
- No
- Fangs
- None
- Longest recorded life
- 50years
- Body temperature when active · measured in the wild
- 19.05°C66 °F
- Body temp in the wild · mean, when active
- 13.1–25°C56–77 °F
De Magalhaes & Costa 2009, Werner et al. 1993, Slavens and Slavens 1999, Anastasiadis and Whitaker 1987: 25, Bannock et al. 1999: 36 in nature, Gutierrez et al. 2013, Hoare et al. 2005: 36, Wilson 2010: 50, Morgan-Richards et al. 2015 (>36 years), Cree and Hare 2016: 50
mean body temperature of active individuals in nature
body temperature of active animals in nature
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 165mm6.5 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 115.9mm4.5 in
- Largest female · snout to vent
- 115.9mm4.5 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 37.5mm1.5 in
- Largest juvenile · snout to vent
- 37.5mm1.5 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputeddisputed
- 94.37g3.3 oz
- Body mass · a typical adultdisputed
- 118g4.2 oz
Shai Meiri, unpublished, Skipwith and Oliver 2023 (females: 100.94-134.64, mean 122.22 mm, males 117.87-137.04, mean 126.76 mm))
snout-vent length; the source column mixes this with straight carapace length
computed from length by a family-level allometric equation, not weighed
AnAge rates this record "acceptable"
How it lives
- Diet
- Omnivorous
- Active
- Nocturnal
- Where it lives
- Arboreal, saxicolous, terrestrial
- Habitat
- Forest, Shrubland
- Biome
- Temperate Broadleaf & Mixed Forests
- Region
- Australo-Pacific
- Mainland or island
- Found only on islands
- Elevation · above sea level
- 140–150m
- Range size
- 86,164km²
- Density
- 188–312.5per hectare
(pollinates, Nyhagen et al. 2001) nectar and fruits (Whitaker 1987), Hoplodactylus maculatus (Bauer 1990), vertebrates (Daza et al. 2009), mainly insects, also fruit and nectar (Whitaker 1968), fruit, honeydew, nectar, leaves, petals, birds, reptiles and arthropods (Hare et al. 2016), large invertebrates, lizards, nectar, fruit, berries and honeydew (van Winkel et al. 2019), eats fruit (Alena et al. 2023)
(e.g., Morgan-Richards et al. 2015), ocasionally active late afternoon and sun basks near retreat (Jewell 2008), nocturnal but basks (van Winkel et al. 2019)
Terrestrial and Arboreal / mostly arboreal (Whitaker 1968), terrestrial, saxicolous and arboreal (van Winkel et al. 2019)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Viviparous
- Average clutch
- 2eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 1–2eggs
- Mean clutch
- 2eggs
- Clutches in a year
- 0.53per year
- Clutches a year
- 0.5–0.56per year
- First breeds at
- 72–84months
e.g., Morgan-Richards et al. 2015
2 (e.g., Gutierrez et al. 2013, Cree and Hare 2016), 1-2 (van Winkel et al. 2019)
(e.g., Gutierrez et al. 2013, Cree and Hare 2016), 1-2 (van Winkel et al. 2019)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Sauria
- Infraorder
- Gekkota
- Subspecies
- No
- Described by
- Duméril & Bibron
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- Yes
- Described in
- 1836
- Type locality
- New Zealand
Keeping one
2 ft 2 in × 2 ft 2 in × 2 ft 2 in(66 × 66 × 66 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 6.5 in (165 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 66 °F (19.1 °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.
11kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 94 g, the heaviest recorded for Duvaucel's 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 · adult female, mean
- — Body mass at hatching
- — Preferred body temperature · chosen in a laboratory gradient
- — Eats arthropods
- — Eats vertebrates
- — Eats plant matter
- — How it hunts
- — 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
- — Active season · shortest recorded
- — Active season · longest recorded
- — 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). Hoplodactylus duvaucelii. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/hoplodactylus-duvaucelii
@misc{hoplodactylus_duvaucelii_2026,
title = {Hoplodactylus duvaucelii},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/hoplodactylus-duvaucelii}
}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.
- AnAge, Human Ageing Genomic Resources (de Magalhães et al.), used under CC BY 3.0.