These absolutely fabulous lizards are commonly known as GARGOYLE GECKOS and they come from the small islands of New Caledonia off the eastern coast of Australia, the same islands from which my crested geckos, chahoua and giant gecko also originate! 

The beautiful individual pictured above and below is an adult female named Kluiverta after Patrick Kluivert, the former Dutch international footballer!!  This is because my Kluiverta was bred in the Netherlands and I hand picked her (not knowing she was female at the time!) due to the beautiful bright orange & red colouration of her parents, the orange being like the bright orange of the Dutch national football kit!!  

There is never any guarantee that gargoyle geckos will end up looking like their parents but I bought Kluiverta in the hope that as she grew her colouration would become much more like them!  When I bought Kluiverta as a tiny baby in late September 2010 she only had a few small pale orange patches as you can see in the first picture below, whereas the second picture shows Kluiverta pictured in February 2011 when the orange had already become much brighter as well as much more widespread across the body!

As well as the gorgeous Kluiverta I also have two other adult gargoyle geckos named Gollum and Lady Gargoyle!  Both are very attractive but they have very different patterns because, like crested geckos, gargoyle geckos naturally occur in a wide variety of colours and patterns including greys, browns, oranges & reds as well as striped / blotched and reticulated patterns.  Gollum's pattern is more striped and, despite not being bright oranges & reds like Kluiverta, he is still very beautiful as you can see below:

Lady Gargoyle's pattern is very different to Gollum's as she is a reticulated gargoyle gecko with a lovely contrast between pale cream and dark brown markings:

Gargoyle geckos can demonstrate amazing colour change and what I find absolutely remarkable is that even the same individual gargoyle gecko can change colour SO much during a single day!  The pictures below are both of Kluiverta and were taken at different times on the SAME day!! 

This colour change has nothing to do with skin shedding, despite the fact that prior to skin shedding a gecko's colour will become noticeably more drab than usual (similar to the way Kluiverta looks when pale grey in the first picture above).  Instead the change is triggered by a wide variety of factors including temperature, humidity and the hormonal changes associated with breeding, amongst others.  When geckos are at their brightest they are said to be 'fired up', a very appropriate term in the case of the brightly coloured Kluiverta I'm sure you'll agree!

Gargoyle geckos get their common name due to the bony lumps on their skull which make them look a bit like stone gargoyle statues, which you can see clearly in these pictures of Gollum and Lady Gargoyle below!

I'm sure you'll agree that gargoyle geckos are extremely variable and beautiful animals, they are also very popular with anyone they meet as part of my Jungle Roadshow!

At the time of writing (15th February 2012) I have now successfully bred four baby gargoyle geckos.  Here are the first pair of eggs ever laid by Kluiverta:

Late on December 31st 2011 I got the loveliest New Year's Eve surprise ever when I found that these eggs had hatched, just a little over two months after being laid!!

Despite having bred many other gecko species for many years this was the result of my first attempt at breeding gargoyle geckos and I was delighted to have been successful at the first attempt! 

The second pair hatched in February 2012 and I was fortunate that one of the babies hatched during the day so I was able to get these photos of the egg once it had been slit from the inside (the baby does this with a special egg-tooth) and of the baby once it was partly emerged!

Gargoyle geckos are incredibly cute (and highly variable in colour) as babies as you can see here:

Despite the first pair of babies looking so very different from each other at hatching (as seen in the very first picture of newly hatched babies above), these next pictures taken just 24hrs later on New Year's Day show them looking much more similar!

As mentioned further up this page gargoyle geckos, like many other geckos, can change colour quite dramatically within a 24 hour period depending on humidity, temperature, mood and many other factors so these changes aren't particularly surprising but are still fairly impressive!

Just three and a half weeks after the first babies hatched, on January 25th 2012, the baby which started out very pale with a little bit of orange blushing had already changed colour quite dramatically as you can see below!

This little one is already more orangey than its mum Kluiverta was at the same age which, considering how stunningly beautiful she turned out, definitely makes this baby one to watch as s/he develops further in the coming months!