Reptilia · Squamata
Phelsuma grandisGray, 1870
Madagascar Day Gecko
Photograph by Charles J. Sharp, CC BY-SA, via Wikimedia Commons
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A tree-dwelling, day-active, omnivorous gecko from the Madagascan region, reaching 140 mm snout to vent.
Reptilia › Squamata › Gekkonidae › Phelsuma
- Grows to
- 140mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Omnivorous
- Active
- Diurnal
- Lives up to
- 20years
Longer than 98% 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
40 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
- 2010
The animal itself
- Limbs
- Four legs
- Venomous
- No
- Fangs
- None
- Longest recorded life
- 20years
(Dubos 2013), 13.6 (Sacha 2018)
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 140mm5.5 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 97mm3.75 in
- Largest female · snout to vent
- 97mm3.75 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 31.5mm1.25 in
- Largest juvenile · snout to vent
- 31.5mm1.25 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 48.25g1.7 oz
- Body mass at hatchingmeasured
- 0.92g0.03 oz
Mertens 1970; holotype of Phelsuma madagascariensis notissima 120 mm, Roesch et al. 2022a (max SVL = 140 mm, citing Krysko and Daniels, 2005)
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
- Diurnal
- Where it lives
- Arboreal
- Habitat
- Forest
- Biome
- Tropical & Subtropical Moist Broadleaf Forests
- Region
- Madagascan
- Mainland or island
- Found only on islands
- Lowest it lives · above sea level
- 93m
- Highest it lives · above sea level
- 900m
- Range size
- 9173km²
Omnivorous in captivity (Henkel and Schmidt 1995), nectar and invertebrates, probably also lizards (Zug 2013)
Sit and Wait
IUCN (0 to 900)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Sex decided by
- Temperature
- Average clutch
- 2eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 1–2eggs
- Mean clutch
- 2eggs
- Clutches in a year
- 8.5per year
- Clutches a year
- 4–13per year
- First breeds at
- 9months
2 (Goldberg and Kraus 2009, Sacha 2018)
Goldberg and Kraus 2009, Sacha 2018
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Sauria
- Infraorder
- Gekkota
- Subspecies
- No
- Described by
- Gray
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- No
- Described in
- 1870
- Type locality
- Madagascar
Keeping one
22 in × 14 in × 22 in(56 × 35 × 56 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 5.5 in (140 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 Madagascar Day 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.
6kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 48 g, the heaviest recorded for Madagascar Day 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.
- Red intensitybreeder consensus
How much red the back and head carry and how deep the green ground is. Built up by choosing the most strongly marked animals over generations rather than by a gene, so no offspring percentage applies.
Worth knowing. A day gecko darkens, pales and shifts colour with temperature, light and mood, so the same animal photographed twice can look like two lines. What a breeder selects is how much red an animal is capable of showing, not a fixed appearance.
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
- — 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
- — 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
- — Population trend
- — Red List criteria
- — Active season · shortest recorded
- — Active season · longest recorded
- — 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). Phelsuma grandis. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/phelsuma-grandis
@misc{phelsuma_grandis_2026,
title = {Phelsuma grandis},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/phelsuma-grandis}
}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.