Giant Day Gecko, The Best Pet Lizard?

Let's face it, day geckos (Phelsuma spp.) are some of the most beautiful and personable reptiles on the planet, and the giant day gecko (Phelsuma grandis) is their king. While there is so much to love about these glorious, adorable little lizards, they do have a few terrible surprises about which you should be aware if you want to know if the giant day gecko is the best pet reptile for you.

#daygecko #phelsuma #clintsreptiles
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Clint is a professional biologist and educator, but above all, Clint LOVES reptiles and he loves to share that love with everyone he meets. Whether you're lover or a hater of reptiles, you can't help but get excited with Clint!
We post a new video every Saturday morning! So stay tuned!

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You guys are so RAD!

[ClintsReptiles]

The concluding thoughts for this video make me laugh every time. Do not miss them!

[clutchcargo]

Fast, elusive, inquisitive (nosey), can slip out of their skin to avoid paying a claim. Perfect mascot for an insurance company.

[SpaceEndeavour]

Finally a reptile that can help me save 15% or more on car insurance

[gardeth]

My wife learned to keep something green next to her Day Gecko cage. Every time he got loose (and he was a bit of an escape artist) he would go straight for closest green surface and this made it easy to recapture. Not sure if this behavior was unique to this little guy or for the species as a whole

[brendonbewersdorf]

When Clint starts the video and the creatures in a cage i start to get worried hahaha

[loganthewyrmlord]

As pretty and cute as it is I don't think it's the best pet lizard for me. Thank you for this video and all the other videos because it really helps me with my research and just reptiles I am interested in for the future.

[lidathorn]

I can't get the image of a tropical fish hopping out of an aquarium and running up the wall out of my head...

[FangMuffin]

I really love my pair of Giant Day Geckos, but I would sincerely agree with the statement that they should just not be handled at all. My male for a skin infection, and so I had to catch and inject him every two days. I shall tell you now, neither of us were having a good time. They are utterly beautiful creatures, fascinating to watch, but seriously? Set up a bioactive enclosure, as minimally interactive as possible, and then just watch them being gorgeous and awesome. The ultimate display pet.

[whtthfrg]

Day Geckos were the first reptile I wanted when I was a kid. I remember secretly saving my lunch money (and starving everyday 😭) until I finally saved up enough to get one :) Unfortunately I didn’t consider the cost of all the equipment and the enclosure (hey I was only 12 or so), so my dream quickly dissipated.
Years later, I know have a giant crimson day gecko, giant kochi day gecko, and mating pair of gold dust day geckos (plus their offspring ❤️), and they are all SO interesting to observe and interact with. Definitely not a handleable animal, but the best observational one imo 😉👍❤️❤️

[raeflagg]

‘beautiful interactive land fish’ made me laugh wayyy harder than it should have 😂😂😂

[Irken_Invader_Zim]

Finally a pet that comes with free car insurance!

[margaretamiddeldorf]

Survival strategy of the Giant Day Gecko while being in danger: “FALLING APART!”
10/10 Genius!

[jordans]

They have it all, the looks, the personality, the hardiness, the intelligence. So incredibly underrated

[azurehanyo]

Excellent video on giant days. I own four adults I have had since they were babies and love them very much. Definitely a great pet to watch; not for handling. My favorite giant day is a female named Ducky that will climb to my hand for her fruit cups and dubias. Cutest dang lizards ever.

UVB was mentioned in the video and as a keeper of them I highly recommend it for this species in conjunction with vitamin dusting their feeders. They are much more active when they have access to UVB. :) Most care sheets dismiss it as unnecessary and I'm glad you didn't.

[Devlinator]

You know the animal is going to have a low handleability score when it's in an enclosure instead of in Clint's hand.

[tikayle]

I'm loving the bright green unique scales that the day gecko, alligator lizard, and chameleon gecko have! (I just saw a female and male pair of the alligator lizards today and they're even more amazing in person.) I can't decide between the three which one is the most rad, since they're all too dang awesome!

[Aiddertot]

I’ve had my giant day gecko, Gobi, for about a month now. She’s absolutely beautiful and this video has really helped me make sure I take care of her in the right way. I had multiple green anoles before, but I had unknowingly overheated them. Informational videos like this are SO helpful when caring for reptiles, as I often notice that generalized pet stores amp up the cost over the proper care. The one near my hometown told me I needed a 100 watt on top and a heating pad on the bottom. With a situation like that, my anoles had nowhere to regulate their temp and I slowly cooked them.

Thankfully, I used that as a hard-learned lesson so I could move on to more challenging animals like the day gecko.

[michellethomas]

I may be late here but I'm in the middle of a reptile video binge session and just noticed your change from MS to PhD. Congrats!

[prcervi]

Dropping tails i now just kinda expect with geckos, dropping skin is a surprise though.

Def not an animal for a newer keeper

[thedisintegrador]

Some pro tips - if a day gecko escapes out of its enclosure, it almost always goes on to climb up high on some wall, as they really hate being close to the ground. And you catch it by carefully putting some kind of a transparent box over them (we use plastic food boxes). You just see them chilling on the wall and you slowly press the box against the wall with the gecko in. And when you got them trapped like this, just insert a sheath of paper between the box and the wall and voilá, you have caught a gecko. Just be sure you don't pinch off the end of their tail or legs when you press the box against the wall.
The escapes happen, but the best tip is to always keep calm, perhaps even give them some time to explore. It's not the end of the world, they really can be caught easily, you just can't use your hands, ever.

When handling is considered, to be honest the handling is pretty OK, I'd give them like 2/5, but you need to know what to expect. I would suggest to never *grab* them, as they are slippery, super fast and skittish, but they can be very easily taught to climb onto your hands (if you offer some kind of a treat which they can lick off your hand, like mashed fruit for kids or honey). And if that occurs and you gradually teach them to come by themselves, it's I would say even more magical and satisfying thing than straight up grabbing a crestie or a bearded dragon. You somehow develop a relationship of mutual trust. If the gecko trusts you and climbs onto you out of its own will, it's the most special thing ever.

Another point that wasn't really adressed in the video is cohabitation. Usually they are thought of as an animal that's always kept in pairs, but that can backfire, not only that you need to take care of the eggs, which WILL come (do you really want to get them out of the enclosure and break them and throw them away? or do you really want to take care of them and the eventual hatchlings?). But that's not the only problem with cohabitation, since the male is asserting his dominance by bites and chasing around and that leaves the female pretty scarred, as their skin is really delicate. The male also gets a few scratches from the chasing and the female fighting back sometimes, so I would generally advise to keep only one gecko per enclosure. Reptiles seem to be solitary animals in general. We keep a pair and it's fine, they aren't killing each other and they aren't hiding from each other, but the bites and scars are there and they also steal food from each other's mouths, which is stressful for everyone involved (save for the thief of course :) )
Also, when getting a reptile, the juvenile is usually much cheaper, but also the sex is not that easy to determine, therefore I would really advise to keep the animals separated so you avoid getting two males accidentally, because the breeders themselves don't always get the sex right.

As for the enclosure, from experience - buy a front-end opening enclosure, as Clint said, but try to get one which either has two sliding doors, or two normal swing doors, as having an enclosure with one big door is really inconvenient, since you aren't really in control of what's happening, you do something with your plants for example and your gecko can easily escape or you can pinch off their tail more easily. This risk is heavily reduced by having two swing doors, so you open the one which is further from the gecko, or without the gecko chilling on it.

Fun remark: a day gecko male juvenile bit me once, just out of the blue. And it was the cutest bite ever. No damage was done, he didn't even seem to mean it, as the "strike" wasn't even fast, and it was so soft, it just sort of scratched a bit with his tiny teeth (or god knows what they have) and it was the cutest thing.
I'd agree with Clint's rating, but they are so utterly adorable and cute that all of the cons seem like nothing. I'd give them 4/5 with the aesthetics, personality and cuteness involved.