Multiple females in a colony often glue their eggs to the same favoured surface, creating a shared communal egg-laying site

Lepidodactylus lugubris is one of a small number of known parthenogenetic vertebrate species — every female lays fertile eggs that are essentially genetic clones of herself, with no fertilisation required at all.

Very occasional male-phenotype individuals have been documented in both wild and captive populations, but they are considered exceedingly rare and are not known to father viable offspring.

Researchers have identified numerous separate clonal lines, some diploid (2 sets of chromosomes) and some triploid (3 sets), believed to have originated from ancient hybridisation events between related Lepidodactylus species.

The epithet is generally thought to reference the species' drab, subdued natural colouration and its soft, plaintive chirping and clicking calls, rather than anything about its behaviour — mourning geckos are, if anything, unusually social for a gecko..

Like most gecko species, mourning geckos can voluntarily drop their tail (autotomy) as a defence mechanism, and will regenerate a new one over the following weeks to months.

This is a fraction of the size of many popular pet geckos, and it drives nearly every husbandry decision: feeder insects have to be far smaller than what's sold for most reptiles, water dishes need very shallow sides, and enclosure gaps that would be irrelevant for a larger gecko are real escape routes for a hatchling barely bigger than a grain of rice..