Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Today, while shopping for pinkie mice to feed my leos, I stopped and looked through the reptile section. I quickly noticed the largest leos i have ever seen in my life, with about 5 of them in different cages. I was suprised enough by their enourmous size, which im guessing was around 8 or 9 inchs and extrmely think (not fat, but thick, like a scaled version of a normal sized leo, but then the next shocker came; they were captive breed in 2001.
2001 was the summer i bought my several week old leos, and to tell the truth, they looked very pewny and small compared to these giants. Mine are normal and wellfed and cared for, but they could not measure up in the size and thickness of the leos at the store. The ones at the store just seemed to be normal leos twice their normal length and still proportional, so it coulnt have been that the store leos were fat.
Only thing i could have thought of was that these were Tremper Giants, but i had my doubts. 1) they were normals, not albinos or even high yellows 2)how would Tremper Giants end up in a small petstore in Central Illionis? and finally, 3) they were only 49.95!!!
What are these things? Is it common for a leo that is 2 years old to be 8-9 inchs and very thick? Any comments or opinons would be helpful, im just trying to see if these are possibly Tremper Giants that are being sold at a rediculously low price. No photos, sorry, but i hope my descriptions help. I can give a better description if one is neccessary.

Thanks, take it easy

8-9 inches is actually quite common for leos, my female is 10 inches. Some are thicker than others, so I doubt they were really any type of giant. Tremper Giants I think get around 11-12 inches, which is alot bigger than the ones you described. Later
Mac

My male geck, Leonardo, is 9.5" long and thick also. It is not common, but not unnatural to see a larger-than-normal gecko. He is a common/high yellow. Ive included a pic to let you see the size. I bought him for $60 from an aquaintance.

-----
JJay
3.4.1 Leos
(& 5 eggs cooking)
0.1 Map turtle

I was confused too in the beginning. Books kept saying that normal lgeckos were ~7-8inches as adults. One of my normals is 56g, 8 1/2inchlong already, a year old (she just stopped shedding every few weeks) and really thick.

It is rather common for leos to reach that size. Nothing out of the ordinary. My male is about 11 inches and is very proportional and thick. So, more than likely they werent Tremper Giants and were just leos that were a little large. Here is a pic of my male...

-----
Josh
My Email

I bought my first male leo at the 2001 daytona show for 30 dollars from some small no name breeder. THe guy told me the thing was done growing (it was already eight inches and about 80 grams) well about 4 months later it topped out at 10.5 inches and 126 grams He was a little plump. From what i have heard this is the average size tremper giant (actually the giants are usually longer and extremeley skinny, my friend bought one from tremper himself who said that they are skinny but will eat a ton and wont thicken up until they are done growing length wise). So it isn't uncommon. I recently sold him to a young boy who is going to breed him to his larger then normal female albino. I think she is like 75 grams. Anyways hes hoping for hets and can then breed to another large albino and start his own albino line. Hope he does because he already owes me babies.

At her top before breeding this year she was at 100g. This is from march and about 90g

Im sorry it did kind of seem like i had no idea what i was talking about. Anyway, I guess they were just larger leopard geckos, but they certainly were not the "normal" size for 2 year olds. It wasnt just the length, but their sheer mass, but i guess they were just normal geckos. My bad, but i was just more convinced when one of my friends who is also a reptile enthusiast was suprised by their size. Alright, thanks for your replies, keep it real.
Surge

I have already, a Blizzard Juvenile.. hatched on April 4th this year who's hit the 6-7 inch mark already... He's huge compared to his clutchmate who's barely half his size... Though his clutchmate has stayed small.. She's smaller than my younger 2 hatchlings. But none of the other 3 are anywhere near my first Blizzard hatchling's size. He just about amazed me with his growth rate....and they've all been raised on nothing but supplemented and gutloaded Mealworms from their first shed on...