Reptilia · Squamata
Tropiocolotes nubicusBaha El Din, 1999
Steudner's Gecko
No photograph of this species exists under a license anyone may reuse. It gets the same page regardless.
A ground-dwelling, nocturnal, meat-eating gecko from the Saharo-Sindian region, reaching 31 mm snout to vent.
Also called Nubian Pigmy Gecko, Nubian Pygmy Gecko, Nubian Sand Gecko.
Reptilia › Squamata › Gekkonidae › Tropiocolotes
- Grows to
- 30.5mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Nocturnal
- Lives up to
- 1.6years
Longer than only 4% 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
36 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
- Data Deficient
- Status assessed · the year the Red List last looked
- 2009
The animal itself
- Limbs
- Four legs
- Venomous
- No
- Fangs
- None
- Longest recorded life
- 1.6years
19 months in captivity (Baha El-Din 1999)
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 30.5mm1.25 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 28mm1 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 15.8mm0.6 in
- Largest juvenile · snout to vent
- 16mm0.6 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 0.72g0.03 oz
- Body mass · adult female, meanmeasured
- 0.17g0.01 oz
max 30.5 mm mm SVL (Baha El-Din 1999)
largely converted from length by allometry in the source
How it lives
- Diet
- Carnivorous
- How it hunts
- Sit and wait
- Active
- Nocturnal
- Where it lives
- Terrestrial
- Habitat
- Desert, Shrubland
- Biome
- Deserts & Xeric Shrublands
- Region
- Saharo-Sindian
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Elevation · above sea level
- 70–400m
- Range size
- 109,821km²
- Density
- 500per hectare
Baha El-Din 1999 says "In captivity animals forage either by slow active searching or by sit-and-wait strategies." suggesting live prey
Sit and Wait
Baha El Din 2006, Baha El-Din 1999, Spawls et al. 2023
70-400 (Spawls et al. 2023)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Average clutch
- 1eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 1eggs
- Mean clutch
- 1eggs
- Clutches a year
- 3–5per year
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Sauria
- Infraorder
- Gekkota
- Subspecies
- No
- Described by
- Baha El Din
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- No
- Described in
- 1999
- Type locality
- Egypt
Keeping one
4.75 in × 4.75 in × 3 in(12 × 12 × 8 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.
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 1.25 in (30.5 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 Steudner's 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.
0kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 1 g, the heaviest recorded for Steudner's 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 · shell length
- — Egg length
- — Egg width
- — Body mass · a typical adult
- — 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 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
- — Population trend
- — Red List criteria
- — Active season · shortest recorded
- — Active season · longest 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). Tropiocolotes nubicus. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/tropiocolotes-nubicus
@misc{tropiocolotes_nubicus_2026,
title = {Tropiocolotes nubicus},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/tropiocolotes-nubicus}
}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.