Satanic Leaf Geckos

[little_dragon_]

I am thinking of getting a pair of Uroplatus phantasticus.
Has anyone dealt with them before?

[pikachu]

awesome animals!
ive got a bunch, plan to be breeding by next year, or even this year if i can find a big enough female for one of my boys!
high humidity, low temp.
mine hate temps above 75, they thrive in the mid 60's to low 70's
my U.ebenui tolerate mid 70's a bit better but prefer it lower.
they love hanging upsidedown on driftwood waiting for the right cricket to walk by!
goodluck!

[manville]

I want one pretty bad too but shipping is expensive

[little_dragon_]

How much would a pair cost?

[beth wallbank]

Kahane has some..contact him. He too is available on this site. Check out his site in the classifieds

[little_dragon_]

Cool, I replied to his ad on kingsnake and I messaged him on here. I'm just waiting for the reply. These geckos look very fragile, do they get stressed easily?

[little_dragon_]

Oh and what are their larger cousins called?

[spidergecko]

The "problem" I find with them is that you don't really get to see them too often. Mine spend their time either under the leaf litter or hidden in the leaves of the live plants I keep with them. At night they are really active. Wanna see pics of mine?
Look HERE (http://members.rogers.com/uroplatus) !

I don't know about fragile. They don't seem much different than other geckos I keep. You just have to make sure you are religious about spraying the enclosure to maintain humidity. You might need to do it as much as 3 times a day!

[sara]

They are highly specialized and cryptic little geckos, so without a proper environment and plenty of hiding spots they do get stressed out very easily. Keep in mind that they developed such a distinctive appearance for the sole purpose of going unnoticed...
I would definitely consider them to be a "look, but don't touch if you can help it" type gecko.

I guess the larger cousins you are referring to would be U. ebanaui. They are slightly larger with very small tails. (although there are long-tailed u. ebenaui). These are also very neat looking geckos and seem to be more readily available up here.

If you are really serious about Uroplatus you should talk to Neil Meister, his knowledge and animals are excellent.

This is a pretty good thread on husbandry and general info:
http://www.ssnakess.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=9934&highlight=phantasticus

[JeffT]

ive seen a CB pair go for over $350, deffinately would like some though.

[Invictus]

These guys are, and have been for some time, #1 on my "to get" list for lizards. Just don't have the money at the moment....

[little_dragon_]

Do you think they'll be the next leopard gecko, or crested gecko in popularity?

[JeffT]

I hope to god not, they are far to delicate to be treated like that and really arnt for handeling. Plus they are quite hard to breed, that why there is so minimal CB animals.

[little_dragon_]

I don't mean handling them..what I mean is are they going to explode in to popularity

[spidergecko]

Originally posted by little_dragon_
Do you think they'll be the next leopard gecko, or crested gecko in popularity?

I can count the number of CB breeders in Canada on one hand (actually, 1 finger right now). If you look on k i n gsnake.c o m, you will find almost no breeders; they are all WC.

Anyone can breed leos. You just take one male and one female and wait. People try breeding satanics for years but fail at some point between copulation and week 1 of life. Normally I could see people exploiting the variations in satanics but because they are so varied, I can't see why people would focus on one trait. Who wants to see an albino satanic? That goes agaist the whole reason of keeping them. They are a great gecko to "show off" because of this variation but it's not cool when your new gecko looks just like Billy's down the street. With leos, the normals look sort of the same. People would exploit a small difference in colour and make a small orange spot on a tail into a big orange tail (then charge you 100x the value for a gecko whose mother is also his sister, daughter, grandmother, and aunt).

There are a lot of people interested in satanics and the whole uroplatus genus but there are fewer people actually keeping them than it might appear. Even fewer producing viable offspring regularly. That's why I have no plans on breeding mine. Whatever happens happens.

[spidergecko]

Apparently, in the US, Strophurus geckos are the new fad, not Uroplatus.

[little_dragon_]

I have never seen those before....The fact that people take Gecko's out of the wild from an ever shrinking population in madagascar really makes me upset. Why wouldn't you want to see any of the gecko species become common and Cb, so the ones in the wild remain untouched.

[sara]

I don't think anyone is saying that they wouldn't like to see more cb uros, but they will never be common because the reality is they aren't the best candidates for captivity. They are so specialized that I don't think the average reptile enthusiast would have the means, interest, tenacity and knowledge needed to keep them thriving long-term.
I guess you could compare the level of difficulty of leo v.s. phantasticus care to african cichlids v.s. discus.

[little_dragon_]

That's true......This is also an ethical situation. If I buy wild caught ones in an attemp to produce cb offspring. Am I making the right choice or contributing to the WC trade

[JeffT]

i dont think there is anything wrong with buying WC or een ordering them in, if its for yourself to breed them. But its when you mass order them and then sell them to various groups of people is when you are only contributing to WC animals.

[little_dragon_]

how much would a wc pair be

[sara]

sometimes a lot more than a cb pair after the vet bills...

[little_dragon_]

If I bought a pair that had parasites...could they be spread over to my other herps?

[spidergecko]

Originally posted by little_dragon_
If I bought a pair that had parasites...could they be spread over to my other herps?

MOST definitiely! You have to be very very careful if your geckos have parasites. Right now I am dealing with parasites in one pair of uroplatus I have. They are otherwise healthy but the regimen for containment and decontamination is pretty strict. These geckos are LTC and have 3 parasites that have been identified:
1) Eimeria spp. (coccidia)
2) Trichomonas
3) Entamoeba

One of these is common, one can be deadly to herps, and one is dangerous to herps and people (so I'm not allowed to lick the geckos).

Sara mentioned vet bills. I promise you, the vet bills to deal with these parasites have doubled the cost of the gecko pair and by the time I am done, the cost will be tripled. Off the top, you need to have a fecal done every two weeks until you get three negatives in a row. For me, fecals cost ~$30 so that is a minimum of $90 already added to the cost of the cheaper WC geckos.

If you really want to buy a pair of uroplatus, you really really should buy a CB pair. They cost quite a bit more than WC or LTC but they will be healthy animals that probably won't need debugging and chances are, a breeder will have chosen the nicest geckos to breed and s/he will have beautiful geckos to sell you. With WC or LTC you never know what you're gonna get. If you buy WC you might luck out and get a really nice gecko but most certainly the dealer selling you the WC uroplatus will have taken the best ones for him/herself.

[attchoum]

i just buy 3 uroplatus sikorae... it's just amazin hos interessent they are to look and observe... they are very beautiful lizard, it's to bad that they are so rare... madagascar are in really difficult situation.... it's sad
attchoum

(sorry for my english... not my language)