CARE SHEET
Lygodactylus kimhowelli
Written by Jeroen van Leeuwen

Lygodactylus is a large genus with 60 or 61 species of relatively small, day-active geckos. The genus is closely related to the genus Phelsuma. They are quite similar in shape, both genera have the same body structure and shape, and lamellae on the underside of the fingers. An important difference between the genera is that Lygodactylus species also have lamellae on the tip of the tail, which Phelsuma species fail. Most of the species within the genus Lygodactylus is brown coloured, although there are some colourful species among them.

Almost all the species form the genus (apart from two species from Brazil, of which it’s still unknown whether they belong to the same genus) are found on Madagascar and in Africa, mostly in the eastern part (especially in Tanzania), but also the western and central part of Africa inhabits species from this genus. The habitats in which the species occur vary from tropical rainforest to dry thorny savannas, from sea level till high in the mountains. The geckos are mainly found on tree trunks, rocks or brick walls and they are true sun lovers. Often you can find only a pair or a male with some females per trunk, the animals are quite territorial, sometimes also the females have their own territories. However this characteristic differs per specimen, in a terrarium it’s sometimes possible to keep a trio, sometimes it isn’t. The tree trunks and rocks are, next to their function as place of living, also used as a hiding place for the eggs, these are deposited in holes.

In captivity, only a few species of this genus are kept. The most important species are: L. capensis, L. kimhowelli and L. luteopicturatus. There is a lot of vagueness around the names of the different species in captivity. The names of L. kimhowelli, L. luteopicturatus and L. picturatus are very often mixed and wrongly used.


DESCRIPTION

L. kimhowelli is one of the more colourful species of the genus. This counts mainly for the male, he is more expressive coloured, with stronger contrasts than the female. The geckos have a light greyish blue body, with some light brown/black markings. The head is yellow with black stripes in the length direction of the head. The female has the same colours, but a little more vague, the blue body is more brown with a blue glow. The colours are most beautiful when the animals get a lot of light, and the animals have the possibilities for a sun bath, when they get less light, the geckos become browner, although the yellow head of the male always will be visible. The identification of the sexes is relatively easy, because the male has a black throat, this in contradiction with the female, which has a light throat. These sex marks are the same for a number of other species from the genus. Next to this is it also possible the identify the sexes with help of the pre-anal pores of the male, which lay in a flat V between the (hind)legs. The male gets, mostly when he gets older, a heavier build head than the female. L. kimhowelli is a species with a moderate body length within the genus, about 9 cm.

The geckos live in habitats which consist of dry till humid forest savannas. In these areas the animals live mostly on tree trunks, but occur also on houses and brick walls. At these spots it’s often drier and warmer than in the environment. In the natural areas the temperature varies between 28 degrees Celsius in July-August and 31 degrees Celsius in December-January and 19-24 degrees at night. The relative humidity is constant between 60-70 % at daytime, and until 90% at night.


KEEPING IN CAPTIVITY

A good size of a terrarium for this species is 30*30*40 cm (l*w*h). The geckos are strongly territorial, because placing two Lygodactylus species next to each other, so that they can see each other causes stress.
In the terrariums you can use natural cork bark walls, for both the back and sides of the terrariums. The enclosures are furnished with bamboo pipes, branches and some Sansevieria plants. Bromeliad plants are also doing well in these kind of enclosures. You can cover the bottom of the enclosures with peat.

The temperature in the enclosures varies between 25-33 degrees at day and 18-22 degrees at night. This temperature is reached by using halogen spots. This spot is turned on for about 4 hours a day. To create as much light as possible, there are 2 T5 TL bulbs on top of the enclosures, which light for 14 hours in summer and 8 hours in winter. You can nebulize the enclosures every night to increase the humidity at night. The spraying also helps to decrease the temperature in the night and to allow geckos to drink.

The geckos are easy feeders. They eat almost anything which is small enough to fit in their mouths: small crickets, drosophila, small waxworms, small cockroaches. In summer, your animals also get insects from outside, which you can catch in nature areas. Next to these insects, the geckos get also 1-2 times a week a lid of a soda bottle, filled with baby foods of fruit (like banana and tropical fruits) for children.
You can dust all insects with Calcium+D3 (like Rep-Cal). In the enclosures there’s always a small lid with calciumpowder, mainly the females make use of this.


BREEDING

The species is not difficult to breed. The females lay every two weeks a pair (sometimes a single egg, but usually two glued together) of eggs. These eggs are deposited in bamboo pipes, or in the armpits of the Sansevieria plants. The eggs have a strong shell, with a diameter of 5-6 mm. At a constant temperature of 27 degrees, the eggs hatch in 80 days, when the temperature fluctuates (day 28 degrees, night 20 degrees) the eggs take about 100 days to hatch. The babies are very small, total length is 26-27 mm, and are pretty vulnerable. Raising them works best in relatively large terrariums. I keep them in enclosures of 15*30*30 cm, with 2-3 babies per enclosure. In the beginning I tried to raise them in cricket boxes, but that’s not possible, the climate in those small boxes is too difficult to create. As food, small crickets (hatchlings), drosophila and springtails (Collembola) are suitable. The babies need food daily, and are very vulnerable for drying out. Spraying once a day, better even twice a day is necessary. The babies of this species arem fully coloured.
Raising the babies is the bottleneck in breeding this species, and that’s probably also the reason this species is not bred very often.