Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Lots of people wonder what phase their babies are, and often get the answer, they are too young to tell. I thought I would show some examples of why this is true.

This is Bea not long after hatching, on 6/11/03. Her mom is a superhypotang carrot, her dad is a hypotang albino. She looks hi-yellow.

This is Bea today 8/6/03. You can see how she is much more orange now.

Here is another of Bea today

Here is a picture of Cheddar, a gecko I bought at Petco just under two years ago that was bright bright cheddar orange when purchased as a hatchling, I thought I had gotten the deal of a lifetime. It was before I had my digicam, so I don't have a pic of her as a hatchling, but she was VERY ortrange, more orange than Bea is today. As you can see, she is a normal/reduced spotting (though I am suprised at how much lavender she still has at her age. As you can see, her name does not seem apt anymore.

Another of Cheddar today

Anyway, I just thought it would be helpful to show how much geckos can change. Knowing what the PARENTS looked like is often a better way to judge what the baby will end up as than what the baby actually looks like.

yea they change alot as they mature I guess you cant ever really know what they will be until they mature enough. do you think the rest of Beas spots will go away? By the way she is a very good looking leo.

Thanks! I do expect that she will end up hypo, because of her genetics. Her mom is superhypo and her dad is hypo, so chances are she will be hypo or superhypo too but of course I don't count on anything for sure until I see it happen.

I have been calling Bea "she" by the way, and I am forgetting I looked today and think I see hemipenile bulges...Looks like my incubator got hotter than intended....I think she is actually a he which means I will have to sell him. This is bad, because Bea is het for albino and would produce some killer tang albinos with my hypotang albino male, but it may be good in a way, because Bea's clutchmate Viv may also be a male, which would rock, as Viv is the best leo I have hatched out yet, a screaming albino tang which SHOULD go superhypo, and would make a FANTASTIC new breeder male for next season

This is Viv (Vivaldi?), who may actually be male from the looks of it:

So if Bea is really Beatty, he'll have to go. Bad for me but on the other hand I'm sure I won't have a hard time finding a buyer for a nice hypotang het albino male.