Reptilia · Squamata
Lygodactylus williamsiLoveridge, 1952
Williams' Dwarf Gecko
Photograph by Esther Böck; AnimalBase.info, CC BY-SA, via Wikimedia Commons
A tree-dwelling, day-active, meat-eating gecko from the Afrotropic region, reaching 34 mm snout to vent.
Reptilia › Squamata › Gekkonidae › Lygodactylus
- Grows to
- 34mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Diurnal
- Lives
- Arboreal
Longer than only 9% 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
32 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
- Critically Endangered
- Status assessed · the year the Red List last looked
- 2012
- Population trend
- Decreasing
- Red List criteria
- B1ab(iii,v)+2ab(iii,v)
The animal itself
- Limbs
- Four legs
- Venomous
- No
- Fangs
- None
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 34mm1.25 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 0.98g0.03 oz
max 34 mm (Spawls et al. 2002, Gippner et al. 2021)
largely converted from length by allometry in the source
How it lives
- Diet
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Diurnal
- Where it lives
- Arboreal
- Habitat
- Forest
- Biome
- Tropical & Subtropical Moist Broadleaf Forests
- Active season · months of the year
- 12months
- Region
- Afrotropic
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Elevation · above sea level
- 170–480m
- Range size
- 51km²
insects in captivity, can add fruit pulp occasionally (http://www.dwarfgeckos.com/lygodactylus/l_w/lygodactylus_williamsi.php)
Crepuscular (e.g., Rodda 2020), Diurnal / diurnal (Spawls et al. 2018)
e.g., Branch 2014, Spawls et al. 2018
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Average clutch
- 2eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 1–2eggs
- Mean clutch
- 2eggs
- First breeds at
- 10–12months
2 (Branch 2014, Spawls et al. 2018), 1-2 (http://www.dwarfgeckos.com/lygodactylus/l_w/lygodactylus_williamsi.php)
(Branch 2014, Spawls et al. 2018), 1-2 (http://www.dwarfgeckos.com/lygodactylus/l_w/lygodactylus_williamsi.php)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Sauria
- Infraorder
- Gekkota
- Subspecies
- No
- Described by
- Loveridge
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- No
- Described in
- 1952
- Type locality
- Tanzania
Keeping one
Williams' Dwarf Gecko is assessed as Critically Endangered on the IUCN Red List. Species at risk in the wild are often covered by CITES and by national law, which decide what may be bought, sold, moved across a border or kept at all — and captive-bred and wild-caught animals are usually treated differently. Check the rules where you are before acquiring one. Nothing below is a judgement about keeping this species; it is what a published welfare standard says about space, and what the animal itself was measured doing.
5.25 in × 3.25 in × 5.25 in(14 × 9 × 14 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 1.25 in (34 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 Williams' 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 1 g, the heaviest recorded for Williams' 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.
Morphs
0 with peer-reviewed genetics behind them, 1 resting on breeder consensus. Most references present both with the same confidence.
- Male and female colourbreeder consensus
Adult males are electric blue with a black throat pattern; females and juveniles are bronze, green or gold. The difference is sex, not lineage.
Worth knowing. The blue this species is named for appears on adult males only. Females and young animals are bronze or green, so clutchmates can look like different species and an animal sold as a "green morph" is a female. Nothing about the colour is bred for or inherited as a variety.
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 female mean
- — 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 · snout to vent
- — 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
- — Body mass at hatching
- — Longest recorded life
- — Preferred body temperature · chosen in a laboratory gradient
- — Body temperature when active · measured in the wild
- — Eats arthropods
- — Eats vertebrates
- — Eats plant matter
- — How it hunts
- — 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
- — 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). Lygodactylus williamsi. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/lygodactylus-williamsi
@misc{lygodactylus_williamsi_2026,
title = {Lygodactylus williamsi},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/lygodactylus-williamsi}
}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.