Mourning Gecko
Geckos
Tiny, all-female, and happiest as a whole chattering colony!
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🤓 Did you know? Mourning geckos are parthenogenetic. Every individual is female, and they can reproduce without males by cloning themselves!
🗓️ The first week
The numbers a new owner needs in the first week, each from the article it links to. Rows with no link come from the encyclopedia.
- Day one
- Quarantined away from any reptile you already keep, on paper towel, with its own tools and a fecal exam inside that window.Quarantine guide →
- Buy more than one
- Parthenogenetic, all female, and colonial, so the social question is settled and group size is an enrichment decision. A lone gecko survives fine and still lays viable eggs.Enrichment guide →
- Enclosure
- A 12x18x18 inch tall, front-opening enclosure for a group of three to five; an 18x18x24 houses the bigger group the colony will become. Height over floor. Adults may eat hatchlings, so separate young as they appear.Setup guide →
- Escape-proofing
- Hatchlings are under an inch and slip through ventilation gaps and door frames that hold any other gecko. Seal every gap with aquarium-safe putty before the geckos go in.Setup guide →
- Temperature
- 70 to 80°F by day with a basking spot up to 85°F, 65 to 72°F at night. Most homes need no heat source at all.Setup guide →
- Humidity and substrate
- 60 to 80% with brief peaks to 90% from daily misting, then a slight dry-down against mold. Coconut coir or a coir and sphagnum blend, moist but never waterlogged.Setup guide →
- UVB
- A 5 to 6% low-output tube is strongly recommended, given how often females lay and the calcium that costs. A 12-hour cycle.Setup guide →
- Fill the height
- Live planting gives usable surface, cover so animals can avoid each other, and humidity at once. Empty height is wasted height.Enrichment guide →
- Staple food
- A powdered crested gecko diet at 2 to 3 parts water to 1 part powder, fresh every 48 hours, in a cup mounted on a wall rather than the floor.Feeding guide →
- Insects
- Once or twice a week: pinhead crickets, fruit flies for hatchlings, newborn dubia or discoid nymphs, small mealworms in moderation, nothing wider than the head.Feeding guide →
- Calcium
- Dusted at most insect feedings, even on fruit flies, with a multivitamin swapped in about weekly, plus an open dish of calcium in the enclosure.Feeding guide →
- Why calcium never lets up
- A clutch of two eggs roughly every 4 to 6 weeks, with no male needed. Not a breeding event but a constant drain.Health guide →
- Feed in more than one place
- Shallow dishes at several heights, since a dominant female may guard a single dish.Enrichment guide →
- Do not handle
- Adults are 3.5 to 4 inches and hatchlings under an inch, and a small drop can be fatal at that scale. Let one walk onto your hand, low and slow. Firing between brown and light tan is normal, not stress.Handling guide →
- Shedding
- It comes off in pieces rather than one sock. A band left around a toe or tail tip needs humidity raised and a moist hide.Shedding guide →
- Budget
- $15 to $50 each, a trio around $60. Setup roughly $200 to $450, upkeep $10 to $25 a month, and a routine exam $35 to $105.Cost guide →
- Adult size
- 3.5 to 4 inches (8.5 to 10 cm).
- Lifespan
- Up to 10 years, some reports of 15.Cost guide →
🚨 Emergency card
Call the vet now if you see any of these.
- A kinked or wavy tail, depleted calcium sacs (the two white ovals under the throat), curved limbs, appetite loss, loss of coordination, and in severe cases seizures (metabolic bone disease). Early cases are often manageable with corrected UVB and calcium; advanced deformities are permanent and warrant a vet
- A female that cannot pass her eggs (egg-binding, or dystocia). A genuine emergency, not something to wait out at home, and untreated dystocia is fatal
- Shed that doesn't come off cleanly and constricts around the toes or tail tip. Generally manageable at home by raising humidity and providing a moist hide, but see a vet if tissue looks like it's dying or the constriction won't release
- Redness, swelling, or a cottage-cheese-like discharge around the mouth (mouth rot). Needs a vet
- Weight loss and poor appetite despite normal feeding (parasites), diagnosed through a fecal exam. Needs a vet
- A visibly thin tail combined with weight loss, which usually points to an underlying issue, whether that's parasites, disease, or simply insufficient feeding for a colony that's grown larger than you originally planned for
Skipping UVB or calcium and D3 supplementation doesn't just risk MBD in the abstract, it directly raises egg-binding risk in a species that's laying eggs constantly regardless of whether you're trying to breed it. Given how small a mourning gecko is, a thermometer and hygrometer that's actually accurate matters more than usual for catching drift before it becomes a health problem.
📰 Where to go next
How Much Does a Mourning Gecko Really Cost?
$15 to $50 a gecko and cheaper by the trio, the $200 to $450 planted setup, and why the Type A to D labels on listings are not morphs.
Mourning Gecko Tank Setup: A Small, Humid, Planted Display Vivarium
The 12x18x18 that holds a small group, the escape-proofing step that matters more than anything else here, humidity that peaks and dries back, and low-output UVB.
Mourning Gecko Feeding: Schedule, Diet, and Why They Stop Eating
Powdered diet every 48 hours and dusted insects weekly, the calcium demand that never pauses, and seven reasons a mourning gecko stops eating.
Should You Handle a Mourning Gecko? Realistically, No
Why an animal this size is a display pet, what tail loss actually is, and why easy care and handleable are not the same claim.
Common Mourning Gecko Health Issues (Egg-Laying Changes the Picture)
Metabolic bone disease and the egg-binding it leads to, the two-egg clutch every 4 to 6 weeks behind both, retained shed, and what a thin tail means.
Mourning Gecko Enrichment: The Only One You Should Keep in Groups
The one gecko where group housing is the starting point, the tokay study that supports it at a distance, and why empty height is wasted height.
🛒 What to buy
Prices and the reasoning behind each item are in How Much Does a Mourning Gecko Really Cost?.
❓ Frequently Asked Questions
Can you handle a mourning gecko?
Not realistically. Adults measure just 3.5 to 4 inches total, hatchlings are under an inch, and a small drop that wouldn't concern you with almost any other pet can be fatal at this scale. It's best kept as a display and observation pet.
Why does a single pet mourning gecko still need consistent calcium?
Because every mourning gecko is female and reproduces by parthenogenesis, a lone pet with no companion at all still lays a pair of eggs roughly every 4 to 6 weeks, year-round. Egg production never pauses, so calcium demand is constant rather than seasonal, even for an unbred gecko.
What's the single most important setup detail for a mourning gecko?
Escape-proofing. Hatchling mourning geckos are small enough to slip through ventilation gaps and door frames that would contain nearly any other gecko species. Seal every gap you can find with aquarium-safe putty or a similar barrier before adding any mourning geckos to a new enclosure.
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📰 Deep Dive
🦎 How Much Does a Mourning Gecko Really Cost?
🦎 Should You Handle a Mourning Gecko? Realistically, No
🦎 Common Mourning Gecko Health Issues (Egg-Laying Changes the Picture)
🦎 Mourning Gecko Tank Setup: A Small, Humid, Planted Display Vivarium
🦎 Mourning Gecko Feeding: Schedule, Diet, and Why They Stop Eating
🦎 Mourning Gecko Enrichment: The Only One You Should Keep in Groups
🩺 Health and More
🔌 Reptile Emergency Plan: Power Outages, Travel, and Pet Sitters
💧 Reading Reptile Stool, Urates, and Hydration: A Daily Health Check
🧼 Salmonella and Reptile Hygiene: The Rules That Actually Matter
🌡️ Reptile Heating and Thermostats: Preventing Burns
🧫 Reptile Quarantine: Why New Snakes and Lizards Need Months, Not Weeks
🦎 Understanding Reptile Shedding (Ecdysis)
🤩 Fun Facts
🦎 Gecko Toe Magic
Geckos can walk on walls and ceilings thanks to millions of tiny hair-like structures on their toes called setae. Each foot has about 500,000 of them, using molecular forces to stick to surfaces!
🦎 Climbing the Walls
Geckos have microscopic hairs on their feet that allow them to stick to surfaces and even run on ceilings! This amazing ability comes from van der Waals forces, making them one of nature's great climbers.