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Can someone give me a good link to an article or site that describes the natural habitat of leopard geckos? I was lead to believe that in their natural habitat, leos live on a hard compacted substrate. Like a packed down earth/clay/sand mix..? My friend insists that they live on "dust" and sand, but I told her their feet are not made to walk on sand and looser substrates. She tells me that I know nothing about the desert and when I told her they live on compacted earth, she gave me this look and said "Have you ever been to Afghanistan??" with a tone that suggested that I'm crazy and stupid. She's never been to Afghanistan, but she keeps acting like she knows everything. She's saying the same thing about bearded dragons and is just pissing me off right now. Pictures of a leopard gecko's natural habitat would be awesome too. I just want to put her in her place for once. Thanks.
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I looked this up the other day actually and they do live on sand technically.... The base of the ground is compacted clay and stuff, but there is sand on top of it. The reason wild leos don't get impacted (not often anyway) is that they don't eat on the sand...when they eat they hunt on rocks and so don't injest sand. But yes, they do live on sand.

Well, in addition to living on sand, they don't necesarily spend most of their time on the sand. Their locomotion isn't so great. They typically live near or around rocky areas and dried up washs, rivers, lakes etc. In the wild these geckos need to be extremely quick for obvious reasons, and while they are on sand they aren't as quick as they would be on harder surfaces (e.g dried up mud, especially with cracks and crevices for them to escape to if need be). There are usually a lot of bugs around dried up bodies of water, because beneath the hard out layer there usually is still a moist under layer where the bugs love to hang out. So technically you both are right, because next to these dried bodies of water is usually fine sand.

Looking at the feet isnt an indication on how to find out if it lives on sand or not. Palmatogecko obviously does because of the webbing, however, just look at my S. Petrii. Same exact foot structure as leos (claws, etc). And they have to be on sand.

If you want to put sand with your leos, its a good idea to cover up atleast 80% surface area with slate.

Well Nasr is right. As someone who has been to Afghanistan, Iraq, and all those great vacation spots, I can tell you the following. The whole region is covered with a fine layer of dust, I guess you could call this sand, but don't get pictures in your head of beach sand it is not that thick. Underneath this dust/sand is a hard clay and rock mixture. Let me tell you this stuff is hard it is difficult to tell which is rock and which is clay. When digging in defensive positions at our bases we actually broke back hoes trying to get into this ground. I tell you what it is something to watch a machine just snap like that. We finally had to resort to shaped explosive charges. Oh and the whole place has a reddish tint, kind of like Mars. So your friend is technically right when she says they live on sand, but it is not the type of sand we as Americans think of.
Hope this helps, and when I get my scanner up and working I can send you pics if you want.

Tim
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LEOs: 3.11.0
1.3 High Yellows (Barney and Betty);1.3 Hypo Tangerines(Bam-bam and Pebbles); 1.0.0 Rescued Normals (Shleprock) 0.4.0Tremper Albinos (No names yet), 1.0.0 Tang Tremp Albino THANKS MARCIA!!