Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi,

I have two adult female tokay geckos, and have had them for about 6 months now. As is normal for tokays, they normally spend just about all of their time hanging around on the walls and decorations in their cage.

Starting about a week ago, I noticed that one of them was sitting around on the bottom of the cage. The only time I ever saw her down there before was when she was walking around and getting ready to climb back up somewhere, or when I had just fed them. Now I've seen her laying down on the floor of the cage on several occasions for several hours at a time. She still spends most of her time up on the walls...but this is definitely a change in behavior.

Is this a sign of something wrong? Is there a possibility that she's getting sick? She's still eating, and she still responds to my presence if I stand close and look in the cage. I heard her making some noise the other night (I think it's called trilling), it was kind of like a drawn out bark. Is there a possibility that she's preparing to lay eggs? If so, is there anything I can do to help the process along?

I'm probably just being over-protective and worrying too much, but I thought I'd ask.

Thanks in advance,
Phil

How sure are you that both are female? To my experience it is normaly the male that trills-to attract a mate. Some thing may well be about to happen.

Frank
-----
"The luxury of not getting involved departed with the last lifeboat Skipper..."

Hi,

Well, I suppose I'm not 100% sure that they're female...I found some pictures online that show how to identify the males, and I can't see any hemipenal bulges nor any real prominent anal pores. So I'm 99% sure, but not *completely* positive that they're female.

She's still eating, and she still gets mad at me when I:

Feed them
Don't feed them
Look at them
Don't look at them
Go to work
Come home
Go to bed
Wake up
Drink water
or watch TV

So I think she's probably OK, it was just weird to see her change her behavior pretty suddenly. For future reference, what would I look for if they are about to lay eggs? And what can I do to make sure that things go smoothly?

Thanks in advance for all of the advice/help.

The first thing you would look for its a thickening of the abdominal area (eggs take room and its shows). If you are really brave you can feel the eggs by CAREFULLY massaging the belly. (Did I mention that I have a neat scar from one of those?)

Another way of sexing (though again not 100%) is to check the body vs head proportions. Males tend to have more slender bodies and larger heads than females. Also many males have elongated spots on the head which look more like stripes.

If she is gravid she will look for a place to lay her eggs. A piece of slate or wood tilted and braced against the side of the tank will give her the sense of a safe place to lay her clutch.

Good luck,

Frank
-----
"The luxury of not getting involved departed with the last lifeboat Skipper..."

This normally has nothing to do with egg laying. You hardly ever notice when a tokay is gravid.
What you observe is typical behaviour of a stressed individual.
Some tokay females do not tolerate other females and hence its not always possible to keep two females together.
Also you may have two males.
For the unexperienced its not easy to sex tokays. Even though adult males are heavier bodied and have larger heads than females, these differences can vanish completely if you look at two tokays of different geographic origin.
Elongated head dots, alleged hemipenis bulges and the like are NOT indicative.
The only reliable difference is the secretion of a waxy stuff from the enlarged femoral pores of the males. But since also females do have clearly visible pores, the differnce is not easy to tell before the animals are fully adult.
Anyhow, you have to seperate your specimens.

Hope that helps

Ingo

I think your assessment of her being stressed out is right on. I peeked in on them this morning and found her right in the middle of shedding her skin...so I would tend to think that that was the source of her stressed out behavior.

I strongly doubt that the two animals are incompatible with one another as I see them sitting next to one another just about all the time. They frequently sit on the walls of the cage so close that they are touching, and I have never seen either one act aggressively toward the other. I also have a hollowed out log in the cage, and they sit together underneath that as well. Am I misinterpreting this?

As for what sex they are, I checked again, and neither of them have the waxy secretions coming from the pores. So, I'm 99% sure that they're both female, just not totally positive. I suppose I'll find out eventually if little babies show up one morning.

I think she might have been hanging out toward the bottom of the cage because that's where the humidifier is located, so I wonder if she was instinctively getting to moister air to help with the shedding.

Any other tips or pointers to offer? I'm going to keep an eye on her toes to make sure the skin came completely off there as well, but it looks like this mystery may be solved. Thanks for all of the advice.

On a side note, what do you guys do to keep your animals from getting bored? I feed them on a somewhat random schedule (no more than three days between feedings) to keep that interesting and I introduce food from different points in the cage. Do you guys do anything for your pets to keep their minds active? Or are they content to just hang out? Are there any climbing decorations that are good for an animal this size to explore on?