Ashton Bradshaw

Growing up in the southeastern United States, Ashton Bradshaw first took an interest in a variety of indigenous herps at age 3. After catching his first house gecko (Hemidactylus frenatus) in Florida at age 8, he fell in love with the “way of the gecko.” In 2001, after years of keeping around 20 species of gecko, he started a website called Gekko Terra (Gecko Earth), to sell and trade surplus geckos. Always wanting to understand the “unusual and hard to keep,” he found he had a knack for figuring out species others were still having difficulty with. In 2008 he was sent to Peru on a grant by Virginia Commonwealth University to study Incan art and Architecture. While there, he studied the diverse and isolated micro-ecosystems in the Andes Mountains’ scrublands and rainforest. Today, with his wife Loren, he runs Gekko Terra and their new venture, Vivarium Essentials, specializing in obscure vivarium supplies. Gekko Terra is working with many fragile and threatened species, as well as others that are “mistreated” by the export/import trade. He is an accomplished surrealist/apocalyptic painter and sculptor