- Whoa! Do you see that tail?
Oh!
- He is 13 inches long!
A gecko that gets over a foot.
(leachie vocalizing)
- Crested geckos, an amazing little gecko
from the islands of New Caledonia.
One of the kind of more popular pets
in the reptile trade these days.
But we're gonna be talking about they're big cousins.
That's right, it happens to be the leachie gecko,
or what they would call leachianus.
The giant gecko from New Caledonia.
Now this is Big Bertha,
and she's from the main island of GT, or Grand Terre.
Now they're the largest of the animals.
But they're some localities, like the Yate,
that actually get gargantuan.
But again, Big Bertha is definitely a large animal.
And this is the first year we're gonna be breeding 'em.
This is the species that is the largest gecko on the planet.
Big Bertha is our largest leachie gecko.
But I've seen other geckos
that have been almost twice their size,
which is pretty amazing.
But today we're gonna find out how big
our biggest, Big Bertha, is.
So let's go ahead and see how much she weighs.
Just get her up here, get her settled in.
305 grams.
That is an absolutely giant gecko.
Just to put it into perspective.
This crested gecko that we looked at earlier,
is only 44 grams.
That's a big difference.
I mean, she's almost 10 times the size of a crested gecko.
Another really popular gecko, of course,
is the leopard gecko.
Let's go ahead and see what this year and a half old one
weighs right now.
47 grams.
Big Bertha is over six times the actual weight.
Now gotta remember, number one.
Big Bertha isn't the largest leachie gecko I've ever seen.
Probably topping out at 600 plus grams, something like that,
in a large leopard gecko.
A really big one might go to 125, 150 grams.
Still, leachie geckos beat them by about four to five times.
And remember before
I said that we are gonna start breeding leachies this year
with Big Bertha being one of our females.
Jessica's actually working on the enclosure right now.
- So we have big Bertha and Shrek here today.
They've been living together at the Reptarium
a little over a year.
We were hoping that they would breed,
but we haven't gotten any eggs or anything from Big Bertha.
So we're gonna set up a new cage today,
and put a new male in.
And then we'll add Big Bertha into the mix.
This is the male
we're actually gonna try to pair up first with Big Bertha.
He's got this little yellow spot and black spot here
that I haven't seen on too many leachies.
So it'll be cool to see if they produce some cool babies.
This is the enclosure we're gonna put him in.
This is gonna be the first,
fully bioactive cage in this room.
We're gonna do a drainage layer,
and just make it fully bioactive,
and see how they do in here.
False bottom here.
Now we just need to put moss in and ABG,
and we're good to go with the bottom part.
(upbeat music)
(moss crunching)
- [Noah] Almost bit my wiener!
(laughs)
- I mean, Noah, you're doing a great job.
Don't be scared.
- He almost bit my wee-wee.
- Yeah, nothing to be scared of.
There is actually.
Oh, hi, Chicken Strip.
- [Noah] He'll calm down here in a second.
- It'll be great.
Don't put him by my face though.
- This is a little treadmill action.
Whoa! Did you see that tail whip?
Look at that. Look at that, boy!
- This is an angry guy here.
- Why's he coming after me coming after me?
- He's coming after whoever.
It's just you right now, Mike.
- Look at the tail whip! - Wow!
- Look at that! Look at that.
- It's probably because I have on red pants.
- [Mike] Come on, Noah, you got sleeves.
- [Both] Whoa!
- That's such a cool feature.
(laughs)
When they had that hit me up there.
- Whoa!
- This is an angry dude.
- Whoa!
Whoa!
He's--
He's ready. - He's so mad right now.
If you're scared, you're gonna make wrong movements.
You're just calm, their heart rate.
Cutting his movement.
There's really nothing, no danger.
He's like really clenched on my leg though.
So I might just like.
(laughs)
- Good job, Noah. - Good core!
- Go, Noah!
- All in the knuckles.
(yelling)
- That was so close to the testes.
- [Mike] Watch your hands!
- He's in my butt hole!
Wow, that gets--
- That was so close.
- He really doesn't like to be held at all.
I'll put him back.
Look at that dragon, boy.
- Looks like Jessica's got a lot of work to do.
Time to measure Bertha.
Let's go ahead and see how long Big Bertha is.
She is 13 inches long!
Over a foot, a gecko that gets over a foot.
And again, like I mentioned,
she's not the largest in the world.
I mean, maybe they can get 18 inches or something like that.
That is absolutely ridiculous.
13 inches. I mean, let's face it.
That's bigger than Subway.
Now crested geckos oftentimes lose their tail as adults.
They run around a little bit more than leachie geckos too.
But thankfully these ones still have their tails on,
so we're able to get an accurate measurement
of the entire animal with its tail.
Slow down there, buddy.
Okay, here we go.
Oh, it's moving, it's moving.
Oh, this gonna be a tricky one.
All right, so we have about eight and a half inches
with the crested gecko.
Still five inches larger and still growing with Big Bertha.
And this is a full grown adult crested.
And with that being said,
let's see how Jessica's doing on the enclosure.
- This is our four bioactive layers.
False bottom here.
We have a screen layer, sphagnum moss layer,
and then we have our ABG layer.
So now it's time to put plants in.
(upbeat music)
- We have about a dozen to 15 leachies in our collection.
Just starting to breed 'em,
like I mentioned earlier in the video.
But they're just absolutely amazing animals.
And we hope we produce babies.
Now, the reason we made this room here,
the New Caledonia room,
is that you actually wanna keep these guys cooler, right?
So most reptiles you think they need a lot of warmth,
but in actuality, the New Caledonia stuff
really likes it in the mid seventies.
Maybe upper seventies at the hottest.
So if you're at 82, 84 degrees,
like much of our reptile zoo is,
it's actually a little bit too warm for 'em.
And these guys can even get down
to low seventies and upper sixties.
And they're very easy to care for
because you actually feed 'em a mixed diet.
A powdered diet just mixed with water.
Repashy or Pangea, or one of those products there.
And then we give 'em the occasional roach.
The occasional cricket and stuff like that.
But they're really easy animals to keep.
And that's what makes these guys so amazing.
Not to mention, look at how great.
This is a little bit more expensive than,
let's say, a crested gecko or a leopard gecko.
But if the prices come down to that same price level,
say even sub 150 or $200.
This will be one of the most popular lizards
in the pet trade fore sure
because they are just absolutely ridiculous.
I mean, they're so cool.
And then when you feel 'em, they literally feel like velvet.
Unbelievably awesome animals.
And again, very easy to care for
'cause you don't need all that heat.
You don't need all the extra stuff that you need
in so many other animals.
- So we're brushing the sloth.
Did you already feed this is something?
- No, just eat it.
(laughs)
- [Camera Man] Well it tastes great!
- This does not tase good at all.
What is purple carrots?
- Mike shh.
- Mike, shh. Will you just relax?
Have you ever been in the sloth room?
You're acting like you haven't.
Have you ever fed a baby?
So you don't wanna squeeze it and give 'em all of it.
Just hold it.
- 'Cause you don't wanna get air in it.
- [Camera Man] Remember we did this with the armadillo.
- This is true.
- [Mike] Trying to eat it, which is really funny
instead of just lick it.
Aw, it looks like my dog's tongue.
How does a sloth's tongue feel?
Is it sandpapery?
- Would you like to try? - Actually I would.
- Okay, so what, slow down there, crazy.
All right. So you're gonna put just a little bit of this
on your finger.
- Little bit.
- Mike. No, listen to me for a second.
So you're gonna go in, but you can only go right here.
Like literally, if you go to the sides,
he will bite, you and you are S-O-L.
- That's fair.
That is crazy! - It's weird, right?
- It is, it's more like our tongue than a dog's tongue.
I've honestly only held him, what, twice now?
This is so awesome.
- Next week, if you wanna hold him, just let me know.
- All right, so that's pretty much it.
All we have to do now is mist it down.
(upbeat music)
(leachie vocalizing)
- Yeah, that's right.
That's what's amazing about these geckos
is they can vocalize.
Listen to him.
That is absolutely crazy, right?
It's cool to see a gecko like this actually calling.
If you were in the wild,
you might hear all this kind of calling from the trees.
Not having any clue
that it came from a gecko like Big Bertha.
- There we go.
- Jessica's done with all that work she had to do
to get this enclosure ready.
So let's go check it out and see what's going on.
The New Caledonia room has come together really well.
This wall is almost done.
It's got just a few more cages.
But this is actually the enclosure
that Big Bertha is gonna go into,
which is absolutely incredible.
Now the male is actually already in here somewhere.
Not exactly sure where he is,
but basically what we're doing is we're just--
Oh, here he is! Right up top, right up here.
This is the male right here.
Absolute gorgeous animal.
He's kind of wedged up here, so I won't take him down.
What we've been doing is we're gonna put Big Bertha
in an enclosure that's right next to it,
so they can see each other.
Give 'em about a week to acclimate a little bit.
Then we'll actually introduce 'em together,
so that's gonna be absolutely incredible.
I mean, this enclosure looks great.
And again, I can see the male is loving it up here.
She's gonna have area to hide over here,
back here, underneath here.
There's a area over here,
and that's what you really wanna give them.
It's gonna be the perfect environment for breeding.
And again, with the temperatures and everything else,
I think we're gonna have baby leachies later this year.
- Time to introduce Big Bertha and,
I don't know if this guy actually has a name.
I don't think he does,
so we'll have to name him.
But we're gonna go ahead and put her in.
So we'll have to watch these two pretty closely today.
I'm gonna put a bunch of food in here,
but it is a little cooler in this room.
I'm gonna temp check it right now.
Up here, it's pretty close to 70.
It's like 65 and 67,
which is perfect for winter temperatures for these guys.
It'll mean it's less likely
that they're gonna beat each other up
in this first like, week or so.
But next week, I think I'm gonna add a heater to this room
just to up the temp a little bit.
And that should stimulate breeding activity
for these guys.
- So the biggest gecko in the world.
That is amazing.
So excited that we might be breeding 'em on, later on.
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Have an absolutely wonderful day reptile army.
Remember, be kind to somebody,
and I promise I'm gonna see you in the next one.