These amazing looking animals are known as CRESTED GECKOS.  Crested geckos live only on a tiny group of islands called New Caledonia, which are off of the east coast of Australia, and nowhere else in the world.  They are fantastic climbers and have sticky pads on their toes which allow them to climb up any surface including glass!  They can also jump quite well and in the wild would jump from branch to branch in the forest trees in which they live.

Crested geckos get their name from the 'crests' of spiky scales which start at their eyes and run down their necks and part of the way down their backs.  One of my most popular crested geckos named Stumpy (pictured directly above and below) has a particularly well-developed set of crests as you can see below:

Stumpy gets his name from the fact that he does not have a tail, and just has a little stump where the tail would usually be.  Unfortunately he lost his tail as a tiny baby, long before I owned him. Unlike most geckos and other lizards which can re-grow their tails if they lose them, crested geckos cannot and so Stumpy has lived his whole life without a tail, and will continue to do so. 

Despite not having a tail Stumpy is able to move around just as well as any of my other crested geckos which do have tails.  In fact being tail-less doesn't seem to bother him at all, as he is the best jumper of them all! 

Crested geckos come in an amazing variety of colours, ranging from bright red or orange to shades of green.  I have many other crested geckos in my collection as they are one of my favourite species to keep and breed.  Vern is another male and is mainly a plain orangey brown colour all over, but despite being plain in colour he is equally gorgeous as I'm sure you will agree!

This gorgeous and exceptionally friendly individual is Rocky.  When I obtained her she was tailless and also very weak, and it seemed unlikely that she would survive.  However, with a large amount of care and against the odds she has developed into a really strong and beautiful adult gecko!

Peach is a female and a lovely orangey-peachy kind of colour all over, hence her name, and is another gecko very popular with children and adults alike!

This is an even brighter orange/red crested gecko named Flame!  She really is stunning:

The geckos below are two female 'harlequin' patterned crested geckos, named Harley and Quinn.  These are very colourful and have patterned sides and legs as well as the pattern down their backs, which is what gives the name 'harlequin' crested geckos.  Mine also have random black spotting all over their bodies which are called 'dalmatian' spots, just like the breed of dog!  

Sometimes the 'dalmatian' spotting can make crested geckos look really quite spotty, like this beautiful one below which I have named Splodge!

The most surprising thing about Splodge is that when he first hatched he looked absolutely nothing like he does now, and in fact I would never have believed he would turn out to be so stunning based on the colour he used to be!  He is the gecko on the left of the picture below, which was taken shortly after he hatched, and as you can see he has changed a HUGE amount since then!

This is what makes crested geckos so exciting to keep and especially to breed, as you can never tell what the new babies will look like OR how they will end up looking when they are fully grown!  These are some more pictures of just a few of the many babies I have hatched since I started breeding this wonderful species in early 2007.

Crested geckos have many amazing and interesting features but my favourite by far is the fact that they have no eyelids and have to lick their eyes to clean them!  The brilliant picture below shows Peach doing this perfectly and I must say a big thank you to my friend Sharon Crawford for being in the right place at the right time and trying hard to capture the moment so well on her camera, especially after I have failed to do so myself despite many previous attempts!