Rarity: Common mount with rare breed
Custom import requirements: Completing this
quest.
Common price range: 7-15✪
For custom import ask
Brissinge
CLASSIFICATION
Species: eufergan (geckos)
Subspecies: Giant gecko
Breed: sand-walker, sharp-scale
Visual references
SANDWALKER
| SPE | END | JUM | GRA | AIA | WAA | STR | ELE | INT | DRE | OBE | COU | RES |
|
3 |
5 |
5 |
5 |
-2 |
1 |
0 |
2 |
2 |
-1 |
2 |
2 |
1 |
Length: 300-380cm
Habitat: Rocky deserts of northern Terrateka, Storm
desert and dust mountains on Evenland
Feed: Invertebrates, vertebrates to size of a cat,
eggs
Lifespan: 15-20yo
Life cycle: hatchling to 6 months, juvenile
6-24months, mature 2-15yo, senior 15yo+
Breeding details: Chance for triplets 95+, twins 60+,
no more than three eggs at once.
Extra pictures for proper offspring growth: Baby
gecko's first wall climb, hatching, playing baby gecko
Wild behavior:
Geckos are nocturnal reptiles. During hot day they hide in
burrows or shaded areas. They are not photophobic, main reason to
hide is simply heat. Their activity is highest at dusk when they
go out to hunt. In winter temperatures (below 10°C) geckos crawl
underground for brumation. During that time, they use fat
reserves stored in tail to survive.
Geckos interact with each other via scents, body language but also
squeaking, clicking and various strange
calls.
These lizards have keen sese of hearing and exceptionally good
sight.
Geckos can detach their tails if threatened. Tail then still
twitches and serves as decoy to distract predator and gecko
moves faster without it. Natural gecko predators are lions who
are faster and more agile. Tails do regenerate, but second tail
is stumpy and short.
They are territorial. Territory is occupied by colony of 3-5
individuals with more females than males and their social
hierarchy is based on size and power. This hierarchy doesn't
determine who is leader of colony, or who will eat first (as
geckos do things separately) but it determines mating
privileges. Since males are bigger, they usually are higher in
social hierarchy than females, thus they choose which female
they want.
Geckos mate typically during summer and after copulation female
keeps male sperm in her body. So for next two clutches she
doesn't need male at all. While in this state, females leave
colony until her storage is empty again. By this she creates
new colonies and geckos constantly shift in-between colonies, so
inbreeding is prevented in nature.
Geckos shed skin all the time. It's continuous process. They shed their scales in little bits with new growth
underneath it. Skin bits ready to be shed are paler in color
and very dry.
They have roughly 100 small sharp teeth that continuously
replace every few months. New teeth, before they replace old
ones, are in rows closer to tongue, so it appears that geckos
have multiple rows of teeth.
Domestic behavior:
Domestic geckos are taught since hatch to be day animals, as they
are needed for work during day. They do tend to have 'crazy
hour' around 4am, when they wake up and go hyper active for
10-15minutes. Then they go sleep again, if possible. Naturally
they wake up shortly before sunrise. Best riding conditions are
at dawn or dusk. Geckos are usable all day through, but best
performance is in temperatures around 26-32°C and humid air.
Geckos need to be trained to suppress hunting instincts so they
don't get distracted with rider on back. However, if set loose,
they will move around 'parking spot' and occasionally hunt
insect or vertebras even with saddle and bridle still on them.
Domestic geckos still display the dominance hierarchy based
on biggest and strongest one, it is best to keep males and
females separated. In any gecko is too aggressive towards others,
it is recommended to give him solitude paddock/stable.
If keeper wants to trigger mating behavior, there's need to give
them summer-like conditions or wait till summer.
In domesticity geckos attack their own babies! They have
to be separated until juveniles reach at least 1,5m of length.
Stable requirements:
They climb walls, even smooth ones, or overhangs and ceilings,
so there's basically no point in fences or any other barriers to
keep them inside, unless it's enclosed box. Common ways used to
contain geckos within paddock, are quite dangerous. Gecko farms
(Especially meat farms. Yes, gecko meat is delicious and often used.) use
spiked wires, spiked bushes, cacti fields or sharp rock
trenches.
Less harmful ways are not so powerful and geckos do escape.
Such methods are mud filled trenches or dense hedges.
For enclosed stables is most commonly used large recessed area
with deep sand or humid substrate bottom and metal netting above
it. Netting lets in enough light and sun, but restricts geckos
from escaping. Insides of such stable is recommended to have
rocks, dry branched tree trunks or even live trees. If geckos are
not provided with natural burrowing grounds, there should be
artificially created burrow cells for each individual.
For feeding, live food is recommended and should be let free to
the stable area, so geckos can hunt it. If no live food
available, partly processed raw (killed, or cut etc.) variant
will do.
|
|
Examples of sand-walker coats. |
SHARPSCALE - rare breed
Common price range: 30-40✪
For custom import ask
Brissinge
| SPE | END | JUM | GRA | AIA | WAA | STR | ELE | INT | DRE | OBE | COU | RES |
|
2 |
3 |
3 |
3 |
-2 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
2 |
4 |
0 |
5 |
5 |
Length: 300-400cm
Habitat: Rocky deserts of northern Terrateka
Feed: Invertebrates, vertebrates to size of a shetland pony,
eggs
Lifespan: 15-22yo
Life cycle: hatchling to 6 months, juvenile 6-24months,
mature 2-15yo, senior 15yo+
Breeding details: Chance for triplets 100, twins 98+, no more
than three eggs at once.
Extra pictures for proper offspring growth: Baby gecko's
first wall climb, hatching, playing baby gecko
Wild behavior:
Generally similar to sand-walkers, but ruder and more predatory.
Sharp-scales, due their scale coverup, dare to attack even other
predators if it's needed. There's also a rattle at the end of their
tail. Rattling
sound with
deep growly chirping is warning behavior before attack in defense.
Sharp-scales shed bit differently than sand-walkers. Body is shed in
smaller bits, but tail skin sheds as whole and gecko slides out of it.
Whenever tail shed happens, new segment to its rattle is added. Rattle's end segments get commonly damaged, so number of
segments doesn’t tell how many shedding gecko did since birth.
Sharp-scale's scales start to harden around three months of age. This
is when the rattle starts to form. When it comes to shedding skin from
large hard scales (such as back scales) they peel of in whole segments
determined by shape of scale underneath (similar to turtle scutes). Segments are upper layer of scale, 1-3mm thick and have
translucent color.
Domestics behavior:
Sam as sand-walkers, except for being less cuddly to keepers and
riders, and more territorial. Sharp-scales tend to have more vigilant
attitude, which makes them good 'guard dogs' if trained well. Their
loud chriping and rattling is then used in similar manner to dog
barks.
It's harder to suppress predatory instinct of sharp-scale.
Stable requirements:
Because of hard scale armor are sharp-scales heavier than sand-walkers.
This makes them unable to stick to vertical surfaces or ceilings.
Thus, they can be kept in less specialized paddocks. They will climb
over fence with ease, but putting overhang on tall enough fence will
stop them reliably.
However, in most cases they are (and can be) kept with sand-walkers, so
they share same habitat requirements with trees to climb and such.
Same goes for food.
TRIVIA
- Original creator of idea is Jasper-19, which was at her time very active admin of Colderra.
-
Jasper has real pet leopard geckos, on which are giant geckos
based on.
- There's 4 old reference sheet reflecting real life gecko colors and genetics. I considered it as overcomplicated and confusing for usage in ARPG, so I created simplified sheet.
- At the end of 2015 first sharp-scale gecko was created as rare variant. It was called 'dragon gecko'.
- While creating description I searched: crocs, turtles, various geckos, snakes and comodo dragons to get some basic idea what is at least remotely possible for such large lizards.
- You can see old outdated information log here.
