My gecko changed of coloration.

[The Cat]

What's wrong with him ???
Here is the first pic:
http://www.anothercat.com/tempo/gecko.jpg
And here is now:
http://www.anothercat.com/tempo/gecko2.jpg

Gimme a hand please...thank you.
Felix

[Neo]

how fast did your gecko change its color?

[Zoe]

Wow that's crazy... what temps are you keeping him at?

Zoe

[Neo]

from the looks of the pic the head patterns are different so it must've shed a couple of times. if this is the case i'd say a color change like that is possible through shedding. sometimes leos get dark as temperature changes as zoe is suggesting.

[Amiechann]

What substrate you have it on? My mother in law uses an icky brown/orange calci sand mix, and it really affected the color of her gecko.
Do you keep calcium dust for it to lick up when it needs to?
That might (just guessing) have something to do with it.

[bob_thesnowman]

are you sure nobody switched their gecko for yours?lol...that's almost to crazy to believe!

[Clownfishie]

Temps can affect colour -- but also, geckos can change as they age. From the looks of things your gecko was still fairly young in that first pic -- probably he just hadn't settled into his adult colouration yet... I wouldn't say that there's anything "wrong" with him, he's just changed :)

[reptilesalonica]

Cat that happened with one of mine females too.
When i've got that female (already adult) from a guy that sold her to me, she was whittish with spots (speckled).
3-4 months later, she turned like me male. Common beize-light yellow coloration...maybe the guy kept her in a very warm cage...and she had that whittish coloration...
My temps are close to 28 celsius.
~Greg~

[DragnDrop]

If you check the "Leopard Gecko Manual", you'll find that the colour change isn't all that unusual. Near the end of the chapter "Effects of Incubation Temperature On Hatchling Sex and Pigmentation", he explains that adults can change colour due to many things, including environment and hormones. Breeding can cause it, as well as health issues and crowding. According to the author, " Few breeding adults maintain the intensity of colour that they exhibited as yearlings."

Sounds like it's not really anything you 'did' but something that was bound to happen sooner or later.
I bought 2 geckos that looked almost like yours when I first got them. A year later the also look like yours does now.

[Regius]

The fact that it changed color like that was because of the incubation color. When you raise the temps very high towards the end, you get awesome colored leopard geckos. The only problem is that it usually won't last past it's juvenile stage. This is why it is always important to see the parent's geckos before you buy them. Also, if you buy a female that was incubated like that (high temp's near the end of incubation) they aren't good reproducers. Often they will be as agressive as males when it comes to copulation and makes it practically impossible for the male to get her.

[HQReptiles]

TheCat,

There are many factors that contribute to the colour of a gecko. You state nothing of your husbandry above.

What temperature is the hot spot?

What temperature does the cage drop to at night?

What do you feed the gecko?

What do you feed the prey items?

What calcium supplementation do you use?

The geckos tail looks thinner in the second picture, is it possible that the gecko is ill?

Is the gecko housed alone or in a group?

How fast did the colour change?

What are you keeping the gecko on for substrate?

Clowfishie: in the first picture that gecko was well over 30g, and his colour (all other factors aside) should not have changed this much.

Greg: All of our leopards are kept with hot spots that reach 95 degrees, ambient temperatures range between 81 - 88 degrees.

Hilde: Our Red Stripe Line geckos do change colour in the breeding season, due to both stress of being caged with other geckos, and the stresses of breeding. NONE of our adults have shown the amount of colour change that these pictures represent.

Regius: That gecko was incubated between 87 - 89 degrees (in our male incubator) for temperature sexing. It is true that incubation temperature can influence gecko colouration as stated on Ron Trempers web site (LeopardGecko.com (http://www.leopardgecko.com)) and outlined in the Leopard Gecko manual. Earlier this season we used the "Ron Tremper" incubation method and had less then stellar results, we tried this with a total of eight clutches. As for pictures of the geckos parents, click HERE (http://www.hqreptiles.com/evolution.html) for pictures of the adults that produced this gecko. The father is the sixth gecko down, in the picture he is well over 18 months old and the picture was taken in the middle of the breeding season, this is as dark as he gets.

Thanks,

Matthew Charlton
High Quality Reptiles