Bart Stimson

Bart is a Thick tailed gecko (Underwoodisaurus milli) sometimes referred to as a Barking Gecko.

Current laws in Western Australia (2007) require that you obtain a category 3 license first from D.E.C. before you can purchase your own barking gecko. Taking reptiles or amphibians from the wild is strictly prohibitated (illegal).

Bart was our first gecko and he's extremely shy, rarely venturing out from his hide until well after midnight.
Thick tailed geckos can be located in every mainland state of Australia.

He currently shares his 30cm(W) x 30cm(H) x 30cm(D) Exo Terra vivarium  with his more out going partner Lisa. Heating is provided by a 30 watt Microclimate heat pad this is positioned so that only one end of the tank is heated which enables the geckos to thermoregulate if they need to. Because geckos are nocturnal no lighting has been provided, besides two red nocturnal room lights. We are tossing around the idea of adding an Exo Terra Compact top canopy so we can add some real plants to the enclosure, this would mean at least one Repti Glo 2.0 Full Spectrum globe.

The substrate we use is red desert sand it is commercially available at most reptile supply shops in 20kg bags ranging in price from $25-$40AU (Nov.2007). We have also utilised synthetic turf and marine carpet in the past. All work successfully but we settled on the sand for aesthetic reasons. Although the astro turf and marine carpet are a lot easier to clean and replace weekly, the sand usually gets spot cleaned daily and entirely replaced at 6 monthly intervals.

Geckos don't require a lot of water or humidity ... but some is necessary. We use a Exo Terra medium water bowl half full daily for the geckos to bathe in (rarely). We also mist the cage and plants daily using a Hills 1Ltr Pressure Sprayer ($4AU at Bunnings) which raises the humidity briefly and also helps with shedding. Geckos like to lick the water droplets of the plants and vivarium walls, I've never seen one drink from the water bowl.

We supplied the geckos with 2 hides to sleep in, one small & one large. Over time we found they preferred the large hide so the small one was removed. We use the Exo Terra reptile den as they provide a secure insulated cave like structure but also allow us to check on them from time to time without disturbing their routine.

Feeding is easy we provide our geckos with approximately 4-6 crickets each, every second day at dusk. We collect the crickets (in a cut down 2 litre soft drink bottle) from their holding tank and lightly dust them with Aristopet's Repti Cal, next feeding plain crickets, next feeding dusted with Repti Vite and next feeding plain crickets again ... then it's back to the start again.

Temperature ranges throughout the year with unheated room temperatures from 40c to 10c. The vivarium remains fairly constant throughout the year with the exception of night time temperatures (unheated) which range from 10c in winter (June-Aug) to 30c in summer (Dec-Feb). Temperatures are recorded with Digital Twin Probe Thermometer CH2 min/max and an infra red non contact thermometer.

 

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Close up Nocturnal shot