# Other Animals > Other Pets >  A few of our Australian Strophurus gecko's...

## TKexotics



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## TKexotics



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## Jeff

Fantastic, these seem to be a rarity in most collections. Or at least, I've not seen much of them before! Thanks for sharing, very cool =)

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## TKexotics

Thank you, the fact that they are Australian makes them more harder to find then some more common species, but their popularity is increasing, and some die hard gecko enthousiasts (like us) do keep and breed a fair amount of different species of them, but more in Europe and Asia then in the US we believe.

Some are more common then others, with Strophurus elderi being like the holy grail for Strophurus keepers, we only know a handfull of people in the world that keep them, and if they become available prices in Europe are like 4-5000€ for a pair.  :Wink: 

Greetings.

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## Monza geckos

Love the weird geckos, I heard exotics are huge in Germany especially tarantulas

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## bill

Wow, those are gorgeous!! I don't know how you got them out of "Roo-ville" and I don't think I wanna know lol


Education is the most powerful weapon we can use to change the world ~ Nelson Mandela

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## TKexotics

Thanks, what do you mean with being huge?
I don't think they grow bigger in Germany than in other country's...  :Wink: 

Just kidding, for rare exotics Germany is the place to be yes, have you ever been to the Hamm show?

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## TKexotics

> Wow, those are gorgeous!! I don't know how you got them out of "Roo-ville" and I don't think I wanna know lol
> 
> 
> Education is the most powerful weapon we can use to change the world ~ Nelson Mandela


Thank you.
Haha, they are all captive born in Europe.  :Smile:  
But i guess we al know how their ancestors got here.., they sailed the open sea's for a few month's on a piece of driftwood, only to wash up on some European beach and fall into the hands of a very lucky gecko enthousiast. Haha. Lol.

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## bill

Ahhh...... Such a romantic story. Much better than the true one about them traveling in someone's butt lol


Education is the most powerful weapon we can use to change the world ~ Nelson Mandela

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## TKexotics

Yeah we know, sadly usually it goes this way...

Stolen Jewels - TV News Video | TVNZ

 :Frown:

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## bill

I want to watch that on the big screen later. But I have seen a few documentaries about exotic animal smuggling. Very sad what those poor animals go though. But I have to give credit to the smugglers on their creativity. I wish they would put that creativity into preserving species versus smuggling. But I guess there's no money in that. 


Education is the most powerful weapon we can use to change the world ~ Nelson Mandela

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## TKexotics

Exactly, espacialy for the New-Zealand species like in the video, wich only produce 1-2 live young each year, and they can live up to 50 years, there always will be a demand so there always will be money to be made on them, so they will always smuggle them, even till the poor animals go extinct in their native habitat.

With Strophurus being much more productive there is a very well established captive population in Europe now and i geuss there is no need to smuggle them anymore.., well most of them anyway. You still see new species comming up every once in a while.
People will always want new and more rare species.

But with the New-Zealand gecko's the result of the smuggling is much more devastating, there are a bunch of healthy Strophurus populations in Australia, the populations of New-Zealand gecko's, and all their native reptiles for that mather are declining at a very alarming rate.

Very sad.  :Frown: 

On the other hand, it's very hard to preserve them and try to establish captive born populations, When it's not possible to obtain them in any legal way.
Is it so smart to have a zero tolerance policy abouth keeping them in captivity, when they are on the verge of extinction???

Greetings.

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## bill

Well, a lot of governments are giving scientists the allowance to keep species on the verge of extinction in captivity, to try to preserve them. Not sure if they do this with geckos, but I have seen it numerous times with frogs and fish. 


Education is the most powerful weapon we can use to change the world ~ Nelson Mandela

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## TKexotics

Yes we know they do it with, for example, Atelopus zeteki and several other species, and some hobbyists in NZ have been given permits to keep these gecko's and breed them, but i don't know how much of them or doing it for the conservation part of it...
We also don't see it working that way because most of the NZ gecko's are not in NZ but in Europe, Asia and Canada.

Idealy they would all be shipped back but we both know that's as romantic as the story above, but also not going to happen.
what they should do is what you said, give out permits to scientists and zoo's, but than overseas, so all those smuggled animals can help with the preservation of the species, instead of being locked away in some guys basement to never see any form of natural sunlight again.

Please don't get us wrong because it's hard to explain in English for us, we do not encourage the smuggling in any way, they should be left alone and at most closely monitered by some scientists, but we do believe that in some way legalising and starting a closely monitored studbook for the ones that are already here and have produced CB offspring could be a big help in the conservation of them.

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## bill

Ohhhh. A good studbook would be an incredible thing, but so hard to out together. You would have to rely on hobbyists to have excellent communication with the originator. And let's face it, most of us are flakes. We disappear for months at a time lol

And don't fret any, I am sure nobody reading this thread feels as though you guys are advocating smuggling. And like I said before, for a non primary language, your English is excellent. Better then quite a few Americans I know lol


Education is the most powerful weapon we can use to change the world ~ Nelson Mandela

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## TKexotics

> Ohhhh. A good studbook would be an incredible thing, but so hard to out together. You would have to rely on hobbyists to have excellent communication with the originator. And let's face it, most of us are flakes. We disappear for months at a time lol


Haha, yes your absolutely right.  :Smile:

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## CatherineM

As I live in Victoria, I am unable to keep this type of gecko.

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## TKexotics

> As I live in Victoria, I am unable to keep this type of gecko.


Why is that?
They are actually 4 different types, but all from the Strophurus genus.

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## CatherineM

We have wildlife licensing laws.


Without a license we can keep a Marbled Gecko (Christinus marmoratus)


With a Wildlife Basic License (Victoria)


* Beaded Gecko (Lucasium damaeum)
* Bynoe's Gecko (Heteronotia binoei)
* Desert Cave Gecko (Heteronotia stelea)
* Eastern Stone Gecko (Diplodactylus vittatus)
* Marbled Velvet Gecko (Oedura marcrurus)
* Pale Knob-tailed Gecko (Nephrurus llaevissimus)
*Smooth Knob-tailed Gecko (Nephrurus Levis)
* Southern Spiny-tailed Gecko (Strophurus intermedius)
* Southern Spotted Velvet Gecko (Oedura tryoni)

i'm not sure what you can keep on an "advanced license" but I don't believe Strophurus are on this license either.

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## TKexotics

Ah okay, we didn't knew that.
So you can only keep Strophurus intermedius with a license.
And these laws are only in Victoria? We have seen some other Strophurus species than intermedius being kept in captivity in Australia but that might have been in another part of the country.

We are now waiting to get a pair of Strophurus wellingtonae.
We also keep Nephrurus amyae, and we are planning to add Saltuarius wyberba to our collection in the neir future.

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## CatherineM

I am new to wildlife keeping.  Only obtain my basic license in June and at this stage only have a "green tree frog" and some "spotted marsh frogs".  I was only planned to keep frogs you didn't need a license for but my "brown tree frog" morphed in a "green tree frog".

The licensing law vary from state to state.

AROD > Reptiles / Squamata / Gekkonidae / Strophurus | AROD.com.au

I didn't know till tonight that we had 141 species of geckos, 17 being "Strophurus"

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## TKexotics

Haha, you got some of the most desirable gecko's in the world overthere !!!

On the list of how many fingers i would give to have the chance of working with them, your native Carphodactylus laevis get's a solid 4.  :Big Grin:

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## Lija

Dude... Im so freaking jealous!

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## TKexotics

> Dude... Im so freaking jealous!


Thanks. I hope it's healthy jealousy...  :Smile: 

Aren't they available in Canada?

Greetings.

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