Reptilia · Squamata
Mediodactylus danilewskiiStrauch, 1887
Bulgarian Bent-toed Gecko
Photograph by Vitaliy Rudenko/Віталій Руденко, CC BY, via Wikimedia Commons
A rock-dwelling, nocturnal, meat-eating gecko from the Saharo-Sindian region, reaching 51 mm snout to vent.
Also called Mediterranean Thin-toed gecko.
Reptilia › Squamata › Gekkonidae › Mediodactylus
- Grows to
- 50.5mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Nocturnal
- Lives up to
- 8years
Longer than only 38% 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
The animal itself
- Limbs
- Four legs
- Venomous
- No
- Fangs
- None
- Longest recorded life
- 8years
Cicek et al. 2015: 2-8 (nature),
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 50.5mm2 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 44.2mm1.75 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 17mm0.7 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 2.89g0.1 oz
Shai Meiri, unpublished
computed from length by a family-level allometric equation, not weighed
How it lives
- Diet
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Nocturnal
- Where it lives
- Saxicolous
- Habitat
- Desert
- Biome
- Mediterranean
- Active season · months of the year
- 7–9months
- Region
- Saharo-Sindian
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Highest it lives · above sea level
- 1270m
- Range size
- 344,648km²
- Density · highest recorded
- 40,000per hectare
Arthropods (Szczerbak 2003)/ omnivorous: arthropods and plants ("In most of the samples (93.41%) were identified a significant amount of plant residues (32.52% of the total food). The plant remains consisted of seeds in sizes from 0.8 to 4.8 mm; leaves and parts of leaves with a length of 5 to 20 mm, and a stem 7 mm long as well as other plant remains.", Mollov and Boyadzhiev 2018), see also Koynova and Natchev 2020
Nocturnal and Crepuscular (Szczerbak 2003, see also Werner 1993)
buildings (Beutler 1981, Koynova et al. 2017): "Geckos were observed always in the evenings walking on the wall of a residential building in the center of the town" (Koynova et al. 2017), "The samples were collected from typical habitats inhabited by geckos, namely supporting walls along the alleys of the hills of Plovdiv and the supporting wall of Maritsa River in the central part of the city" (Mollov & Boyadzhiev 2018)
1036-1265 (Cicek et al. 2015), Szczerbak 2003: 0-200
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Average clutch
- 1.5eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 1–2eggs
- Mean clutch
- 2eggs
- Clutches a year
- 1per year
1-2 (Szczerbak 2003, Mollov 2011, but then Mollov writes mean is 2)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Sauria
- Infraorder
- Gekkota
- Subspecies
- No
- Described by
- Strauch
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- Yes
- Described in
- 1887
- Type locality
- Ukraine
Keeping one
8 in × 8 in × 5 in(20 × 20 × 13 cm)
Minimum length × width × height, for one animal. Bigger is always better.
The standard sizes ground-dwelling species at 4 × 4 × 2.5 times snout-vent length.
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 (50.5 mm), at 4 × 4 × 2.5 times it, following the German federal welfare standard — how this is worked out.
No preferred body temperature has been recorded for Bulgarian Bent-toed 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.
1kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 3 g, the heaviest recorded for Bulgarian Bent-toed 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 · 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
- — 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
- — First breeds from · youngest recorded
- — First breeds by · oldest recorded
- — 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
- — Conservation status
- — Status assessed · the year the Red List last looked
- — Population trend
- — Red List criteria
- — Density · lowest 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). Mediodactylus danilewskii. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/mediodactylus-danilewskii
@misc{mediodactylus_danilewskii_2026,
title = {Mediodactylus danilewskii},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/mediodactylus-danilewskii}
}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.