Posted by:
Lucien
at Sat Mar 4 16:34:51 2006 [ Email Message ] [ Show All Posts by Lucien ]
I want to know why everyone thinks geckos can't tolerate temps that high in places as long as they can escape to another area where its not that high. They're desert animals. Temps where they live routinely get up to 140 degrees F. They hide in rock crevices during the day that are around 80 degrees F with an ambient hunidity if 75%. At dusk they start coming out to warm up.. this means heated surfaces in the 120 range.. with air temps in the high 90's still. They use natural heat sinks to get their metabolism in gear for a night of finding food. This means exposure to substrate temps far higher than you think they can tolerate. I give ALL my leos from babies on up a spot thats at least 110 degrees surface temp (Using a UTH) to provide for a belly heat surface like they'd use in the wild to help their digestion. Rocks in the desert are routinely recorded at 150 still after the sun goes down and the stars come out. They've kept all the heat from the day and release it slowly through the night. You guys are giving far too little credit to a kind of animal that are remanants of the oldest living animals on our planet. As long as you give them places that they can choose their temps from... they'll live healthily enough. 110 isn't even really hot enough to burn your skin... let alone their skin...
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Lucien
1.1 Columbian Redtail Boa (BCI)(Sutekh and Isis)
5.11.Leopard geckos (1.2 Blizzards (Caine, Phoenix, and Mirage), 0.2 Tangerine Albinos (Tequila Sunrise ...Tiki for short, and Casper), 1.0 Tremper Albino (Mycah), 0.3 Poss. Het. Albino (Annika, Lace, and Aris), 1.1 dbl. het blizzard x tang albino (Malice, Malfeas), 1.0 Full Stripe Chocolate Tremper Albino (Discord), 0.1 pastel (Raven) and 1.2 Normals)
0.1 Savannah Monitor (Kiros) (R.I.P. November 18, 2005)
13 rats (plus pups)
2 Dogs (Loki and Storm)
2 cats (Ashe and Hercules)
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RE: WOW I just took a temp reading???? - Lucien, Sat Mar 4 16:34:51 2006