Reptilia · Squamata
Tarentola boettgeriSteindachner, 1891
Boettger's Wall Gecko
Photograph placed in the public domain, CC0, via iNaturalist
A rock-dwelling, nocturnal, meat-eating gecko from the Afrotropic region, reaching 75 mm snout to vent.
Once published as Tarentola bischoffi — those names reach this page.
Reptilia › Squamata › Phyllodactylidae › Tarentola
- Grows to
- 74.5mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Nocturnal
- Lives up to
- 6.1years
Longer than 61% 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
38 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
- 2008
- Population trend
- Stable
The animal itself
- Limbs
- Four legs
- Venomous
- No
- Fangs
- None
- Longest recorded life
- 6.1years
- Preferred body temperature · chosen in a laboratory gradientmeasured
- 32–33.8°C90–93 °F
Slavens and Slavens 1999
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 74.5mm3 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 59mm2.25 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 28mm1 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 10.75g0.38 oz
- Body mass at hatchingmeasured
- 0.61g0.02 oz
max 74.5 mm SVL (Feldman et al. 2016)
computed from length by a family-level allometric equation, not weighed
How it lives
- Diet
- Carnivorous
- How it hunts
- Sit and wait
- Active
- Nocturnal
- Where it lives
- Saxicolous
- Habitat
- Rocky, Shrubland
- Biome
- Mediterranean
- Region
- Afrotropic
- Mainland or island
- Found only on islands
- Highest it lives · above sea level
- 1780m
- Range size
- 1755km²
- Density
- 600–2800per hectare
Arthropods (see "Sources (general)")
Sit and Wait
mainly nocturnal, but can be seen anytime (Salvador and Brown 2007), nocturnal (Brown 1996)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Sex decided by
- Temperature
- Average clutch
- 1.5eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 1–2eggs
- Clutches in a year
- 4.5per year
- Clutches a year
- 4–5per year
1-2 (Maso and Pijoan 2011)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Sauria
- Infraorder
- Gekkota
- Subspecies
- Tarentola boettgeri boettgeri STEINDACHNER 1891 Tarentola boettgeri bischoffi JOGER 1984 Tarentola boettgeri hierrensis JOGER & BISCHOFF 1983
- Described by
- Steindachner
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- No
- Described in
- 1891
- Type locality
- Spain (Canary Islands)
Keeping one
11.5 in × 11.5 in × 7.25 in(30 × 30 × 19 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 3 in (74.5 mm), at 4 × 4 × 2.5 times it, following the German federal welfare standard — how this is worked out.
In a laboratory thermal gradient this species settled at 90–93 °F (32–33.8 °C).
Preferred body temperature, recorded in a laboratory gradient where the animal could choose freely. A measurement of the animal, not a setting for a thermostat.
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.
2kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 11 g, the heaviest recorded for Boettger's 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 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 temperature when active · measured in the wild
- — Eats arthropods
- — Eats vertebrates
- — Eats plant matter
- — How the young develop
- — Gestation or incubation
- — Mean clutch · smallest reported
- — Mean clutch · largest reported
- — 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
- — Red List criteria
- — Active season · shortest recorded
- — Active season · longest recorded
- — Home range · largest recorded
- — Active in
- — Lowest it lives · above sea level
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 boettgeri. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/tarentola-boettgeri
@misc{tarentola_boettgeri_2026,
title = {Tarentola boettgeri},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/tarentola-boettgeri}
}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.