Reptilia · Squamata
Tarentola annularisGeoffroy Saint-Hilaire, 1827
Ringed Wall Gecko
Photograph placed in the public domain, CC0, via iNaturalist
A rock-dwelling, nocturnal, omnivorous gecko from the Saharo-Sindian region, reaching 140 mm snout to vent.
Also called White-spotted Wall Gecko.
Once published as Sahelogecko annularis — those names reach this page.
Reptilia › Squamata › Phyllodactylidae › Tarentola
- Grows to
- 140mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Omnivorous
- Active
- Nocturnal
- Lives up to
- 19.8years
Longer than 98% of all species in Phyllodactylidae 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 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
44 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
- 2012
- Population trend
- Stable
The animal itself
- Limbs
- Four legs
- Venomous
- No
- Fangs
- None
- Longest recorded life
- 19.8years
Carey and Judge 2000, De Magalhaes & Costa 2009, Werner et al. 1993: 8 years, 8 months; Slavens and Slavens 1999: 11 years, 10 months, Hughes 1988: 8.67; TAU museum records: 19 years and 10 months
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 140mm5.5 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 89mm3.5 in
- Largest female · snout to vent
- 89mm3.5 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 35.25mm1.5 in
- Largest juvenile · snout to vent
- 35.3mm1.5 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 68.92g2.4 oz
- Body mass · a typical adult
- 16.61g0.59 oz
- Body mass · adult female, meanmeasured
- 14.8g0.52 oz
- Body mass at hatchingmeasured
- 1.15g0.04 oz
max 140 mm SVL (Feldman et al. 2016), mean female mass 14.8 g (Akef 2023, n = 93)
snout-vent length; the source column mixes this with straight carapace length
computed from length by a family-level allometric equation, not weighed
AnAge rates this record "acceptable"
How it lives
- Diet
- Omnivorous
- How it hunts
- Mixed
- Active
- Nocturnal
- Where it lives
- Saxicolous
- Habitat
- Rocky, Savanna, Shrubland
- Biome
- Tropical & Subtropical Grasslands, Savannas & Shrublands
- Active season · months of the year
- 8–12months
- Region
- Saharo-Sindian
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Lowest it lives · above sea level
- 30m
- Highest it lives · above sea level
- 1600m
- Range size
- 5,606,138km²
Insects and lizards, gerbil (Crochet and Renoult 2008, see also del Marmol et al. 2019), insects (Masood and Asiry 2012), Ibrahim 2004: insects, spiders, plants (which are the predominant food in winter) and cannibalism, wide variety of invertebrates (Saber et al. 1995), insects and lizards (Schleich et al. 1996),
ambush and foraging / sit and wait (Masood and Asiry 2012, Saber et al. 1995) / sit and wait, occasionally active foraging (Ibrahim 2004)
(e.g., Ibrahim 2004)/ mainly nocturnal but basks sometimes (Largen and Spawls 2010)/crepuscular (Masood and Asiry 2012), nocturnal but not uncommonly active during the day (Saber et al. 1995), mainly nocturnal (del Marmol et al. 2019)
Saxicolous - and edificarian (Masood and Asiry 2012)
150-450 (del Marmol et al. 2019), 0 to above 1600 (Spawls et al. 2023)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Sex decided by
- Temperature
- Average clutch
- 1.5eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 1–2eggs
- Mean clutch
- 1.5–2eggs
- Clutches in a year
- 5per year
- Clutches a year
- 2–8per year
- First breeds at
- 12–36months
Van Wilgen and Richardson 2012; Ibrahim 2004 (1-2 mean 1.5), 1-2, mean 1.67 (Akef 2023), 2 (Spawls et al. 2023)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Sauria
- Infraorder
- Gekkota
- Subspecies
- Tarentola annularis relicta JOGER 1984 Tarentola annularis annularis (GEOFFROY SAINT-HILAIRE 1827)
- Described by
- Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- Yes
- Described in
- 1827
- Type locality
- Egypt
Keeping one
22 in × 22 in × 14 in(56 × 56 × 35 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 5.5 in (140 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 Ringed Wall 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.
8kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 69 g, the heaviest recorded for Ringed Wall 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 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
- — 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
- — Red List criteria
- — Density · lowest recorded
- — Density · highest recorded
- — Home range · largest recorded
- — Active in
Others in Phyllodactylidae
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). Tarentola annularis. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/tarentola-annularis
@misc{tarentola_annularis_2026,
title = {Tarentola annularis},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/tarentola-annularis}
}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.
- AnAge, Human Ageing Genomic Resources (de Magalhães et al.), used under CC BY 3.0.