October 2014

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    Reflections of a Multi-Species Gecko Keeper

    I am Yann Fulliquet, 37 years old. I live in Switzerland and work in a rehabilitation clinic as a nurse.

    I am rather new to this hobby as I only have been into it for 4 years now, but I have been keeping fish for 19 years, with a primary interest in South American catfish and cichlids. My interest in reptiles started around that time too, but for a long time I thought they were much more difficult to care for than fish so I stayed away but read about them periodically until I finally decided to start with them.
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    Leopard Geckos: A Hobby Developing to an Artistic Science

    Eublepharis macularius, the leopard gecko, is an animal we have all come to know and love. They are easy to care for and make great pets, but what has become so eye catching about them is the vast diversity of their appearance. Through the many decades of captive breeding of these animals, several traits have randomly mutated and popped out, such as the three strains of albinism (Tremper, Bell, and Rainwater.) Other traits have affected the visual appearance of the eye or the pigmentation patterns on the body. For years now, these traits have been mislabeled as ‘genes’ due to seemingly following simple inheritance patterns (aside from polygenic traits.) The truth is, we have no idea what these traits are. The fact that they are inherited consistently and reproducibly, however, does mean they are part of the genetic material of the animal. More