All Angles Creatures
Squamata · PhyllodactylidaeEntry 19,897 of 21,572

Reptilia · Squamata

Tarentola albertschwartziSprackland & Swinney, 1998

Jamaican Giant Gecko

No photograph of this species exists under a license anyone may reuse. It gets the same page regardless.

A gecko from the Neotropic region, reaching 137 mm snout to vent.

ReptiliaSquamataPhyllodactylidaeTarentola

We do not have enough on this species yet

Catalogue of Life records this animal’s name, its family and where it sits in the tree of life. Beyond that, only 20 facts are on record — no diet, no lifespan, nothing we would be willing to publish as an entry.

So this page waits here rather than pretending to be one. It is not listed and not submitted to search engines. If you know this animal and can point us at a published source, we would rather have it right than have it soon.

Grows to
137mm
greatest recorded
Weighs up to
64.66g
greatest
Red List
Data Deficient
Body length across Phyllodactylidae

Longer than 97% of all species in Phyllodactylidae anyone has measured.

97% of 159 species are smaller3% larger
34 mmthe whole family, smallest to largest179 mm

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 34 to 179 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

20 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
Extinct
Conservation status
Data Deficient
Status assessed · the year the Red List last looked
2015

The animal itself

Limbs
Four legs
Venomous
No
Fangs
None

Size

Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
137mm5.5 in

max 137 mm SVL (Feldman et al. 2016)

Length snout to vent · adult female mean
137mm5.5 in
Largest female · snout to vent
137mm5.5 in

snout-vent length; the source column mixes this with straight carapace length

Body mass · greatestcomputed
64.66g2.3 oz

computed from length by a family-level allometric equation, not weighed

How it lives

How it hunts
Sit and wait

Banfi et al. 2023

Region
Neotropic
Mainland or island
Found only on islands

Naming and history

Suborder
Sauria
Infraorder
Gekkota
Subspecies
No
Described by
Sprackland & Swinney
Moved to another genus · since it was first described
No
Described in
1998
Type locality
Jamaica

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 · 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
  • Diet
  • Eats arthropods
  • Eats vertebrates
  • Eats plant matter
  • Active
  • Where it lives
  • Reproduction
  • How the young develop
  • Gestation or incubation
  • Average clutch
  • Smallest clutch recorded
  • Largest clutch recorded
  • Mean clutch · smallest reported
  • Mean clutch · largest reported
  • Clutches in a year
  • Clutches a year · fewest
  • Clutches a year · most
  • 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
  • Population trend
  • Red List criteria
  • Biome
  • Active season · shortest recorded
  • Active season · longest recorded
  • Density · lowest recorded
  • Density · highest recorded
  • Home range · largest recorded
  • Habitat
  • Active in
  • Lowest it lives · above sea level
  • Highest it lives · above sea level
  • Range size

Others in Phyllodactylidae

Sources

  1. Meiri, S. (2024). SquamBase — a database of squamate (Reptilia: Squamata) traits. Global Ecology and Biogeography. Public domain (CC0).
  2. Catalogue of Life (dataset 3LR), used under CC BY.
  3. Oskyrko, O. et al. (2024). ReptTraits: a comprehensive dataset of ecological traits in reptiles. Scientific Data. Used under CC BY 4.0.