Reptilia · Squamata
Lygodactylus picturatusPeters, 1870
Painted Dwarf Gecko
Photograph by John Lyakurwa, CC BY, via Wikimedia Commons
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A tree-dwelling, day-active, omnivorous gecko from the Afrotropic region, reaching 43 mm snout to vent.
Also called White-headed Dwarf Gecko.
Once published as Lygodactylus sudanensis — those names reach this page.
Reptilia › Squamata › Gekkonidae › Lygodactylus
- Grows to
- 43mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Omnivorous
- Active
- Diurnal
- Lives up to
- 1.1years
Longer than only 25% 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
37 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
The animal itself
- Limbs
- Four legs
- Venomous
- No
- Fangs
- None
- Longest recorded life
- 1.1years
Werner et al. 1993: 1 year, 1 month; Hughes 1988, Slavens and Slavens 1999: 1 year
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 43mm1.75 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 35.3mm1.5 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 11.5mm0.5 in
- Largest juvenile · snout to vent
- 14mm0.6 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 1.85g0.07 oz
- Body mass · adult female, meanmeasured
- 1.45g0.05 oz
- Body mass at hatchingmeasured
- 0.06g0 oz
max 43 mm (e.g., Gippner et al. 2021)
computed from length by a family-level allometric equation, not weighed
How it lives
- Diet
- Omnivorous
- How it hunts
- Mixed
- Active
- Diurnal
- Where it lives
- Arboreal
- Habitat
- Forest, Savanna
- Biome
- Tropical & Subtropical Grasslands, Savannas & Shrublands
- Region
- Afrotropic
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Highest it lives · above sea level
- 900m
- Range size
- 1,218,976km²
- Density
- 9.6–62per hectare
Arthropods and nectar (Branch 2005, Malonza and Bwong 2023)
Sit and Wait (e.g., Mesquita et al. 2016), sounds more like active foraging in Branch 2014
Diurnal and Crepuscular (e.g., Spawls et al. 2023 for sudanensis)/ Diurnal (Spawls et al. 2018, Malonza and Bwong 2023)
e.g., Loveridge 1920, Mesquita et al. 2016, Branch 2014, Spawls et al. 2018, Malonza and Bwong 2023
730-800 (Malonza and Bwong 2023), 350-650 (L. sudanensis, Spawls et al. 2023)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Average clutch
- 2eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 1–2eggs
- Mean clutch
- 2eggs
- First breeds at
- 10–12months
mean 2 (e.g., Mesquita et al. 2016), pairs (Branch 2014)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Sauria
- Infraorder
- Gekkota
- Subspecies
- Lygodactylus picturatus picturatus (PETERS 1870) Lygodactylus picturatus sudanensis LOVERIDGE 1935
- Described by
- Peters
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- Yes
- Described in
- 1870
- Type locality
- Tanzania
Keeping one
6.75 in × 4.25 in × 6.75 in(17 × 11 × 17 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 (43 mm), at 4 × 2.5 × 4 times it, following the German federal welfare standard — how this is worked out.
No preferred body temperature has been recorded for Painted Dwarf Gecko. Rather than repeat a number from a care sheet, this page leaves it out.
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 2 g, the heaviest recorded for Painted Dwarf 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 · shell length
- — Egg length
- — Egg width
- — Body mass · a typical adult
- — Preferred body temperature · chosen in a laboratory gradient
- — 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
- — Clutches a year · fewest
- — Clutches a year · most
- — 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
- — Active season · shortest recorded
- — Active season · longest recorded
- — Home range · largest recorded
- — 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). Lygodactylus picturatus. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/lygodactylus-picturatus
@misc{lygodactylus_picturatus_2026,
title = {Lygodactylus picturatus},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/lygodactylus-picturatus}
}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.