Leopard geckos can darken their skin colour in response to cold, stress, or low light
Colour darkening helps with thermoregulation and camouflage and is a normal, reversible response. A gecko that's consistently dark alongside other symptoms like lethargy or poor appetite should still be checked over, but darkening alone isn't diagnostic of illness.
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Most active at dawn and dusk when temperatures in their native Pakistan and Afghanistan are ideal.
A widespread misconception is that the tail acts like a camel's hump storing water.
Autotomy — voluntary tail shedding — is a defence mechanism.
Unlike most gecko species which use van der Waals forces to climb smooth surfaces, leopard geckos have conventional claws.
The moveable eyelid is unusual among geckos.
Hold your gecko up to a light source and look through one ear opening — you can see light through the other side.