Reptilia · Squamata
Lepidodactylus lugubrisDuméril & Bibron, 1836
Mourning Gecko
Photograph by Connor Long, CC BY-SA, via Wikimedia Commons
A nocturnal, omnivorous gecko from the Oriental region, reaching 51 mm snout to vent.
Also called Common Smooth-Scaled Gecko.
Reptilia › Squamata › Gekkonidae › Lepidodactylus
- Grows to
- 51mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Omnivorous
- Active
- Nocturnal
- Lives up to
- 12.5years
Longer than only 39% 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
45 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
- 2019
The animal itself
- Limbs
- Four legs
- Venomous
- No
- Fangs
- None
- Longest recorded life
- 12.5years
- Preferred body temperature · chosen in a laboratory gradientmeasured
- 29.2°C
- Body temperature when active · measured in the wild
- 29.5°C85 °F
- Body temp in the wild · mean, when active
- 26.5–32.5°C80–91 °F
Greer 1989: 2.75; http://www.geckosunlimited.com/community/gecko-care-sheets/17763-mourning-gecko-lepidodactylus-lugubris-care-sheet.html: 12.5, Dewynter et al. 2020: at least 6 years
mean body temperature of active individuals in nature
body temperature of active animals in nature
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 51mm2 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 40.6mm1.5 in
- Largest female · snout to vent
- 40.6mm1.5 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 17.5mm0.7 in
- Largest juvenile · snout to vent
- 17.5mm0.7 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 2.97g0.1 oz
- Body mass at hatchingmeasured
- 0.14g0 oz
max 51 mm SVL (Feldman et al. 2016)
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
- Omnivorous
- How it hunts
- Sit and wait
- Active
- Nocturnal
- Where it lives
- Arboreal, saxicolous, terrestrial
- Habitat
- Forest
- Biome
- Tropical & Subtropical Moist Broadleaf Forests
- Active season · months of the year
- 12months
- Region
- Oriental
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Highest it lives · above sea level
- 1100m
- Range size
- 7,663,934km²
- Density
- 100–3700per hectare
- Home range · largest recorded
- 3.7m2
Arthropods, nectar and fruit (Das 2004, Bauer and Sadlier 2000, Cogger et al. 1983)/omnivorous (Daza et al. 2009)/insects and nectar (Buden and Taborosi 2016), arthropods, a moth (Fitzsimons et al. 2019), insectivore (Black 1983)
e.g., Mesquita et al. 2016
Nocturnal, also basks (Bauer and Sadlier 2000), occasionally diurnal (Gaulke 2011), nocturnal but in leaf litter by day (Karunarathna et al. 2015), Nocturnal (Buden and Taborosi 2016, Black 1983)
Arboreal (e.g. Wilson and Swan 2003, Morrison 2003, Black 1983)/Saxicolous, Perry and Garland 2002 / terrestrial (Dunham et al. 1988, Mesquita et al. 2016) / scansorial (Grismer 2011)/mostly arboreal, also on rocks and in leaf litter (Karunarathna et al. 2015)
7-999 (Jayaneththi et al. 2015)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Sex decided by
- Genes, ZW/ZZ
- Average clutch
- 1.5eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 1–3eggs
- Mean clutch
- 1.72–2eggs
- Clutches in a year
- 5.5per year
- Clutches a year
- 2–9per year
- First breeds at
- 1–8.5months
2 (Gaulke 2011), 1-2 (Zug 2013), mean 2 (e.g., Mesquita et al. 2016), 2-3 (Karunarathna et al. 2015), Sakai 2021: 78 out of 281 clutches (27.8%) were single-egg (i.e., mean 1.72)
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
- French Polynesia
Keeping one
8 in × 8 in × 8 in(20 × 20 × 20 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 2 in (51 mm), at 4 × 4 × 4 times it, following the German federal welfare standard — how this is worked out.
In a laboratory thermal gradient this species settled at 85 °F (29.2 °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 3 g, the heaviest recorded for Mourning 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.
Morphs
0 with peer-reviewed genetics behind them, 2 resting on breeder consensus. Most references present both with the same confidence.
- Clonal lineagebreeder consensus
Which all-female line an animal descends from. Several distinct lineages circulate, differing in size, ground colour and how strongly patterned they are.
Worth knowing. Mourning geckos are parthenogenetic: the population is all female and every animal lays fertile eggs without a male. A hatchling is a near-clone of its mother, so a lineage passes on whole rather than assorting — there is no pairing, no ratio, and nothing to cross. Two animals kept together do not produce a mix of them.
- Colour and patternbreeder consensus
How dark, how banded and how strongly marked an individual is. A mourning gecko also changes colour markedly between day and night, so two photographs of one animal can look like two animals.
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
- — Population trend
- — Red List criteria
- — Active in
- — Lowest it lives · above sea level
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). Lepidodactylus lugubris. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/lepidodactylus-lugubris
@misc{lepidodactylus_lugubris_2026,
title = {Lepidodactylus lugubris},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/lepidodactylus-lugubris}
}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.