Can You Cohabitate Leopard Geckos? A Revision of Leopard Gecko Cohabitation ft. Reptiles & Research 

A pleasure, Liam! Leopard geckos belong to a truly fascinating species, as common in the pet trade as they are!

@@JTBReptiles I find common pet reptiles are often overlooked as being basic or not impressive but really they are only common due to hardyness or for being easy to produce. But really they are often misrepresented and actually far more complex!

Question for both Reptiles and Research and JTB Reptiles! I love both of your channels! I'm looking into giving a lot of my animals upgrades in the near future. I am in the planning and saving money stage. I have a male and female leopard gecko, each currently in 20 gallon long tanks. I initially had them together in a 48x24x15 and they got along swimmingly, of course I monitored for conflict, but they were happy. However, upon reading about how it is never recommended to keep leopard geckos together, I separated them, and had to put them in smaller enclosures due to lack of space. Now, I have 3 options: get 1 4x2x2 for both of them, get a 2x2x2 for each of them, or get 2 48x24x16s for each of them. If I were to cohab them again, I'd like to get a third leopard gecko, female. Which enclosure configuration do you guys think would be best for them? I've already had them together before and saw them get along for the longest time, but I succumbed to peer pressure and separated them. I don't have a desire to breed them however, but my male has seemed pretty depressed since I separated the two. Any advice?

I was aware of the marks on my geckos and what they were. They appeared on day one of putting them together and were gone with the next shed, not yet to return - I think it was the results of my male's breeding antics. Separation is definitely the biggest key to long-term success with this, I think. It is, as you say, what makes a huge difference between captivity and the wild: there's only so much space in a box. If we have the ability to separate our animals at a moment's notice (and we pay enough attention to them to know when we might have to intervene), then it would be very unlikely indeed that any long-term harm would come to them. As I argue in the video, for the time that they are living harmoniously, I think it a good bet that they will have a better quality of living than if they were to be alone; and so I think we should at least really consider this before writing off cohabitation entirely. On a slight tangent (which is more a point of speculation than a serious conjecture), your observation with your female leopard geckos matches something I have seen in my lined day geckos when I just had two females together (thinking one was a male). They got on for so long, clearly begrudgingly (I am not aware of lined day geckos being anywhere near as social as leopard geckos, but breeding projects necessitate cohabitation!), until one day the subordinate female kept attacking the dominant one. It was all rather sudden and unexpected. Within not-very-long the dominant female had reasserted her position and business resumed as usual. Still, they would be quite guarding over food and the dominant female would never share basking space with the subordinate. When I learned of the dominant female being, indeed, female and not male, I acquired an actual male, and the females immediately stopped being so aggressive towards each other (and have been calm ever since). The male, being so much larger than the females, is clearly the dominant member of the group. Could it be, then, that all-female groups are more prone to deterioration because the members of such groups are more evenly matched, so there is a potential for any individual to take the top position and therefore they fight for it? Does the presence of an obvious "ruler", a larger male, serve to calm the rest of the group because even the highest-ranking female will still always be below the male in the pecking order? The male never has to assert his dominance; the females would never contest it seriously. Perhaps, then, my mixed-sex leopard gecko group is better set up for long-term success - maybe? (I am ignoring the implications of breeding here, but again, this is more a paragraph of food for thought than anything serious. We shall have to wait and see!)

@@JTBReptiles if those marks didn't appear anymore that's great to hear. i agree with you and i think everyone should decide for themselves and educate themselves before making a decision to cohabite or not. Interesting assumption you're making regarding your observation your daygeckos. I don't have any experience in keeping mixed sex leopard gecko groups so i can't say if this might be true or not. But i'm excited to see how your group is evolving over time and i like that you're very open to proper discuss this topic. That's only one of the reasons i love your channel so much!

@@3012ftp Discussion is what it's all about! Thank you :)

Thanks for sharing your experiences!

Thanks 😁

Thanks!

is it normal for them to fight or bite every once in a while?😊

@@sameen11Agehnejad no, only happened one time but I think it was an accident. They’re both pretty old now so I don’t think they’d fight anyway

Thanks 😁

I agree, Joe did well on this!

Thank you both! Your contribution was much appreciated, Liam 😁

That is a rather broader topic that I am not yet ready to tackle... but that doesn’t mean I won’t be in time 😉 Thanks for watching!

There is definitely something in this, and it is something I could have mentioned, which is that you don't want to be mixing ill leopard geckos together for the simple fact that what ails one could easily spread to another member of the group. For this reason, it is essential to have long quarantine periods prior to mixing stock (which is why I held my females separate from my male from February to August, a full six months in total). It isn't a massive problem to know which geckos are eating what. If I throw six locusts in and see one gecko coming out straight away and catching four of them in quick succession, I'll tong feed next time and give that gecko less than the others. As it happens, the only feeders I let loose for hunting are crickets and locusts - everything else burrows, so I offer these items on tongs anyway. It's really not that difficult to keep track. With regards defaecating, well, if the geckos are outwardly healthy and all the faeces looks normal, I think it is a fairly safe bet that all three are, indeed, healthy. If a small portion of the faces were to look abnormal and all the geckos were still acting the same, I might not know which one of them (or ones of them) have the complaint, but seeing as they all live together anyway, I'd be wanting to get them all seen to by a vet regardless of whether I knew which one had any symptoms. I'd separate them, get faecal tests done for each, and take them all in for a checkup - which is exactly the same as I'd do if just one of them were to be diagnosable. It is true that if one gecko managed to pick something up from somewhere, then it would be more difficult for it to be spread to geckos in separate enclosures than ones in the same enclosure, but if you've done a proper quarantine period then I see no reason why that initial likelihood of contracting disease from somewhere is any higher for a leopard gecko in a group compared to one in isolation. Given how low this likelihood of initially contracting a disease is (assuming proper husbandry), I don't think it represents a real reason not to cohabitate (but it is, quite rightly, something to think about). Thanks for watching

Thank you 🙂

any updates? im planning on cohabing 2 females in a 48x18x18, trying to see as many successful cohabs as possible before i decide to lol

@@kilIacon i separated because one was not growing.... Come to find out she's just a micro. Built small but healthy and proportional. The other ended up being a Male anyways so glad I did separate too

Yes, I’ve witnessed biting a couple of times over food, and it is usually accidental - my male leopard gecko tends to get quite over-excited over food... It has not amounted to anything thus far. Such minor events as these are what we must be prepared for when cohabbing. We must draw a line between letting animals be animals and one animal continually bullying one or several others - in the case of the former, we let them get on with it; in the case of the latter, we move them apart. In essence, long-term success rests upon knowing when it is time to step in, and just as importantly when not to.

@@JTBReptiles thanks so much for responding. I am assuming this is a one time thing because they are fine with each other now. Also, they have multiple hides on each side of the tank for separation if they don’t want to be near each other. Have a great rest of your day!

@@JTBReptiles I also have 2 setups prepared for the geckos, if anything were serious.

Hello, here is an update on my geckos fighting. I have seen them bite a few more times and have decided to separate them, in the same enclosure. I will have a divider in the tank that lets them both have heating on each side, as well as room for the geckos to explore.

Juveniles are more likely to get along than adults; most people that breed keep their juveniles together at some point. Make sure you have a nice-sized enclosure and a spare one available to separate if necessary!

@@JTBReptiles okay tysm

Thank you! What sort of enclosure is it - wooden or glass?

@@JTBReptiles glass, sliding front opening doors. I have a 3” thick piece of insulation foam to carve something for the background

I’ve never done a foam build before, but I have done a cork background in a glass vivarium using just cork, silicone, and sphagnum moss, and it turned out well. The video (a bit dusty now, I must admit!) where I did this is linked below. In a few weeks to a month or so, I will be commencing a new glass build where I will be using the same technique. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-xI2gHdFA5iI.html

@@JTBReptiles I kinda want to use the foam so it’s removable. I did just get 15lbs Of corkbark, maybe I should just glue a bunch of it the foam?

Having not used foam before, I don’t know how well that will work... If it’s not all silicones to the back of the vivarium, is it not likely to fall forwards? You might be better asking in the Facebook group “Building Reptile Cages”. It’s quite a new group but a promising one. Joe Monahan is admin.

They’re in a 3x2x2’ at the moment 🙂

Whether the specifics of caring for different animals are different or not, the fact that animals (or at least vertebrates - I’m not well-up on invertebrate keeping) demonstrate “negative” (how this is defined, again, I don’t know, but you will see an intuitive “negativeness” in all the analogies I am about to make) behaviours when they are unable to live naturally is regardless of where in the family tree they fit. Several years ago we were moving house, and we were setting up a pond for my goldfish which had previously been together in a tank indoors. Rather than dumping all the fish into the newly-cycled (fishkeeping jargon which you may or may not be familiar with - basically, if a tank or pond is properly “cycled”, you can safely keep fish in it) pond, we put just two in to start with. Both fish sat on the bottom and were reluctant to feed. We could not find any issues with the setup, however, and had to move the other fish in anyway because time was pressing on. Lo and behold, when six goldfish were present, they all swam round and came for food. I may be right or I may be wrong, but it would seem to me that the fish had been lonely in one way or another, yet I doubt many people would ascribe such a feeling to a goldfish! Most of the time, goldfish kept in solitude do not seem bothered by it. Nor do leopard geckos. Perhaps it was because my goldfish had been together for so long beforehand that the split caused such a change in their behaviour. Maybe it was just the change, not necessarily tied in to anything to do with social living. The possibility still remains. How, indeed, do we know that the possibility does not remain in leopard geckos? They DO live together in the wild - because we struggle (find it damn near impossible) to interpret their thoughts, can we really be so certain that they do not suffer in some way from solitude? It is certainly something to think about. With regards longevity, I disagree that a long life and a good life are the same thing. A budgerigar kept indoors in a small cage, alone, is likely to live twice as long as one in a group in an aviary, seemingly because flying round just takes its toll on their little bodies. For this, an animal which would naturally spend its life flying in enormous flocks across the Australian outback, does solitary confinement in a cage seem like a better life than life in a spacious aviary? Another example: returning to big cats, I have seen cheetah in an enclosure in a zoo (quite a prestigious zoo which I won’t name) pacing round. And I don’t just mean a bit: both of them were taking such a perfect track around the enclosure that there was a trail round the perimeter about four inches across where the grass hadn’t grown. They were literally taking the same steps over that thin line, over and over again, stopping the grass from springing up there. Yet, I bet they’ll outlive most wild cheetahs - veterinary care, no threat from starvation, no lions to kill them when they become weak... Is this really a better life than one in the wild? The optimum is to provide the creatures with the things which are clearly not “negative” (disease, starvation, predators etc) but still to give them everything else. Where does social interaction fall on this spectrum for leopard geckos? If we can ensure that the negative aspects will not come into play - bullying and so forth - by tailoring our enclosures and always having a spare to hand, then what argument is there not to cohabitate given what we know (and perhaps more importantly, what we don’t know) about the social nature of leopard geckos? I do not know of one, so I keep my leopard geckos together.

@@JTBReptiles c’mon. Fish? Cheetahs? I don’t need an analogy to understand the concept. I get the concept. Unless you’re comparing behavior to a burrowing reptilian insectivore it’s just a completely pointless comparison. Your logo before the video suggests you’re peer reviewed (by Facebook groups?) so I’m holding you to a scientific standard. But let’s take your analogy at its face value and you’ve shown that social animals falter in isolation. What negative effects are geckos showing in your solution? I would argue that your male was doing awesome in that beautiful enclosure. And what are the negatives? You said it yourself in the video. They fought over food already for you. In the study you cited he says the live in the burrow together but forage separately. I could make a case using the (incredibly vague) animal welfare act to argue that you’re not allowing them to perform their natural behavior of foraging individually!! I also think promoting cohabitation runs the risk of encouraging someone less experienced who thinks they’re ready for “advanced husbandry,” who ends up with injured geckos. I just don’t see the rewards outweighing the risks. Now, I should say I think your setup is phenomenal. I would rather see this video framed as a defense of your own experiment as I’m not buying the justification that cohabitation is inherently beneficial. The science just isn’t there yet.

Surly the inability to express social behaviours in what has been shown is a social species is detrimental to the animal mentally? Who are we as keepers to determine that an entire array of behaviours that have evolved over the course of thousands of years not be required for that animal to truly thrive. Surly or atleast in my opinion the introduction of an appropriate tank mate(s) into an appropriate exhibit can only benifit to create a far more complex and mentally engaging existence.

@@user-ks7tx2wb7y I’m not convinced by the evidence shown in this video that these animals show any sort of social behavior that is beneficial. I don’t believe that we should simply recreate the wild at all levels without assessing the risk. And the risk of food fights is very present and already observed by JTB. Who are we to decide? We’re the person tasked with the survival and wellbeing of this animal. I think this particular setup and keeper are wonderful, but it can go wrong quickly, and should not be recommended as quality care for leopard gecko keepers. There’s merit to being cautious.

"But let’s take your analogy at its face value and you’ve shown that social animals falter in isolation. What negative effects are geckos showing in your solution?" The point of my analogy includes your first sentence, but is broader than that. I am attempting to illustrate that any vertebrate species can be expected to, as you say, "falter" when it is unable to perform natural behaviours. (I don't know what "falter", "suffer", etc. would be defined as, but I think all readers will accept that it is a fairly intuitive concept). This observation has no intrinsic association to social behaviours - you will see that the cheetahs were (probably) pacing around because they are nomadic by nature and enclosure therefore does not allow them to fulfil their desire for movement, not because they were socially dissatisfied. No, specific social behaviours are mostly incomparable between taxa, even closely related ones. (I could infer that humans are solitary creatures by assessing orangutans and be completely off the mark, for example.) Being social versus solitary has proven too plastic throughout the course of evolution for solid assumptions. It would be entirely inappropriate for me to look at a bird, a teleost fish, and a mammal to decide whether a reptile is social or not! But that is not what I am doing. Given, then, that we cannot make good guesses as to the social nature of leopard geckos by looking at other species, we have to look at the information we have about this species in particular to find out what would be its natural state. As it happens, we find that they are "gregarious" by nature, as Khan writes. Once again, this does not mean that they will necessarily suffer from an inability to perform social behaviours - indeed, do they? You're right in asserting that we don't see any specific behaviours - like pacing, feather-plucking, enhanced aggression, or whatever else we might see in other species - which result from their solitude. But there are a couple of issues with this line of thought (it occurred to me a long time ago, and I thought about it quite a bit before dismissing it as cause not to cohabitate). Firstly, what exactly would you expect a lonely leopard gecko to start doing? They aren't the most emotive of animals, as far as the human observer is concerned. Maybe solitary leopard geckos ARE exhibiting unique behaviours in frustration at their situation, but we are too oblivious to notice. It wouldn't surprise me. Secondly, I think that the notion that there must be an unnatural behaviour to replace the natural one(s) is false. You will agree that a lone, caged budgie probably has lower welfare than if it were to be flying round in a flock in an aviary - yet it might live longer and I, for one, will say that budgies never seem particularly depressive! What is wrong with that state of living, then? It is the absence of the natural behaviour that is the issue: the bird is NOT flying or chattering to its companions; if it were, it would be better off than it is in its cage, but the being alone in the cage does not promote unnatural behaviour. The bird might well not be bothered about being alone and caged, but it would much prefer not to be. Likewise, a leopard gecko may not be particularly bothered about living alone, but it may well much PREFER being able to interact with conspecifics. (This might be a rather subtle extension and change of view from what I have posed earlier, so I hope I have explained it properly.) Thinking of all of the above, we have an animal which would naturally live communally and, in doing so, performs a whole range of natural behaviours which do not fall into that category of "obviously harmful" like tail autotomy. There are, of course, downsides to cohabitation, but if we limit these in the ways described in the video (with the method of limitation of highest importance being the option of separation), then is it not the best conclusion that social interaction will benefit leopard geckos? I think so, or I wouldn't have put my leopard geckos together, and I wouldn't have made this video about it. (Before you right off the peer review as being done by Facebook know-alls, by the way, I recommend having a look in the groups and seeing the list of names in the review panel.) I thank you for your caution here. You've obviously got your thinking hat on, which makes a nice change!

It’s all about taking responsibility. Yes, the animals might not get along - but by keeping them together, does that mean you aren’t prepared to separate them? As I explain in the video, the likelihood of having to separate them can be made low indeed if you set things up properly, but even then, you’ve still got to be ready to move the animals apart if needed. I think much of the controversy comes from the fact that people think you either keep them together permanently, or not at all: there’s no recognition of the keeper being able to step in during a worst-case scenario. As you say with rabbits, I should imagine that rabbits are perfectly capable of giving each other as much of a beating as any other animal. Yet, it is noted how much they benefit from companionship, so they are kept in pairs or groups whilst recognising that the keeper may have to intervene if they do not get along. With reptiles, of course, we have not only to prove that this is the case - common sense though it may seem - but also to prove that, in the right measures for the right species, social interaction can indeed be a positive thing. The latter is perhaps the most difficult point to get across, so I hope the video has done so adequately! Thank you for watching and your feedback 😁

@@JTBReptiles Absolutely, we have to break the rabbits up every now and again as they both have their moments to show their dominance to the other. It all ends fine and they snuggle up to one another. As you say common sense and an enclosures that allows space if needed.

What you describe - what one may call “folklore husbandry” - seems to be rife in all the sectors of petkeeping I’ve ever dipped my toes into. “Such-a-body says something, means it’s true, ‘nuff said.” I can’t comment on gastropod care, but it sounds to be much the same from how you describe it. Keeping animals in the private home has expanded enormously in recent years, and it is time we took responsibility by doing actual research rather than carrying out long-held traditions in faith that they will always work!

@@JTBReptiles Funny story about that actually, my replies when they mentioned that it’s bad and shouldn’t be done because more experienced people than me tell us not to, I said that I do not follow folklore husbandry and will go by papers mostly, if they had any. They said that it was ironic to bring that up, as in that case I am starting folklaw husbandry for unsafe practices if people watch me. Interesting twist in the argument there 😂

Thanks Dillon!

4x2x2 is quite small for 2 leopard geckos tbh, I have that for a single gecko,

Thanks - the confectionary arsenal is ready for action! Joking aside, I must point out that I hope any disagreement can be put towards constructive conversation rather than combat, be it involving toffees or otherwise. We will only progress if we can learn to listen as well as put our own thoughts across! Thanks for watching 🙂

Dead 😂

Thus far I have nothing to report, which I suppose can be taken as good news, although to be fair the geckos have been in full hibernation since November and were being cooled down through October, so I wouldn't expect much activity anyway. We'll have to wait for the spring to find out. If people go throwing their leopard geckos together willy-nilly, then yes, that would produce an influx of the things, and there will be some viewers that take this video as me confirming that just putting leopard geckos together, regardless of the situation, is OK. I can't stop that; I've tried my very best to make a coherent argument, and if people want to pick and choose quotations to alter what I've said to support their actions, I can't stop that. I don't think it is the right thing just to sit quiet about it all, though. With regards female health, I am led to believe that egg binding is more of an issue when the eggs are infertile. Adult female leopard geckos will lay eggs once they're a few years old whether they breed or they don't; in nature these eggs will almost always be fertile, so it follows that they probably haven't evolved to cope with laying slugs as they have nice pearly whites. I presume that mated females will lay more regularly than unmated ones, though, so maybe it does require more of their bodily resources in the long term. There are a lot of unknowns here. A further one to add into the mix is that where overbreeding has occurred in the past in the hobby, it has almost always involved geckos in unlit plastic boxes: you can see that the health of the geckos in these surroundings is incomparable with that of those in well set up vivaria, so the effort of egg laying will be a lot greater. In summary, then, I cannot say whether being in a mixed sex group in a proper vivarium actually would leave a female any worse off than not being bred at all - it's another one we'll have to wait and see. In any case, there's nothing stopping a female being temporarily pulled out from the group for a break. Thank you for watching, and thank you also for sharing your concerns! It's always good to be revisiting and thinking about things.

@@JTBReptiles are you expecting that they will breed? will you be removing any eggs if they do? Unwanted babies would be my biggest concern with this approach.

Yes, I will raise the babies on. If there turns out not to be much demand for them, I will simply feed off any future eggs to my corn snake.

@@JTBReptiles - great excuse to get a snake! I do think for me, and probably for many, this critical piece would be a real stumbling block to this approach. I was seriously considering two females together, but having read that some people here have had long term problems with that, I'm reconsidering.

@@JTBReptiles - please keep us updated. I'm fascinated by this. I understand people's concerns and also understand why you'd be willing to take the risk. I hope you'll give us some honest assessments of how it goes.

Length of Ur tank in feet?

Nah the guys an idiot you only want to house sisters together

Also is his Viv filthy or something living animal rotting wtf.

@Hood_mf I have no idea bc this was like 3 years ago. I do know that they all died and he didn't get anymore. So.fucked up...he was shocked my beardie lived to 2 😳

​@@bookworm28427 crazy

Also I don't know if it posted but I said two sisters probably would've been alright

Is it bad to say I'm the fucture id like to do it but the main reason is that it's just cool lol

Another advantage of sleeping together in groups in the wild is that they're more focused on predators, so that they won't have 'time' to fight with each other. The same can't be said for captive species, that could explain why there is often a breaking point as opposed to an instant reaction when cohabitating leopard geckos, crested geckos etc.

There are multiple explanations for this behavior, including the fact that food is more spread out in the wild so they must forage further than in a captive environment. So it's not necessarily that they can't stand each other and scatter but rather the demands of finding food. Yes, the space will be smaller, but that's an argument for more space, not solitary confinement.

@@LeesInTheD I don’t know if the loose pseudo social dynamics leopard geckos have with each other constitutes the phrase “solitary confinement” when they are not provided long term. Don’t get me wrong the enrichment benefits female leopard geckos in particular seem to get from properly done cohabitation is substantial enough for more advanced keepers of this species to consider There are just a lot of things that make me think that the social interactions we see between wild leopard geckos are like the neutral interaction between many species of reptile we consider for all intensive purposes to be “solitary animals”. I mean there are factors that also play a role into what are called leopard gecko “colonies” Firstly this behavior has been recorded as more frequent during times of breeding which means at least part of this grouping behavior is likely due to some form of sexually based competition. Also note these animals seem to have a preference for a specific type of landscape, cover, and natural structures to make burrows and residences out of. In areas that have less of these options the colonies seem to be larger, with more fierce completion. while in cover heavy or arid semi forested habitats which have more cover options the colonies seem to be smaller in number. This makes me think that part of the formation of this social dynamic is a mutual interest in a preferred safe hiding space, and pockets of suitable habitat. There is also the fact that in most cases in the wild these animals will spend most of their active time alone and seemingly come back to a shared burrow to sleep and stay safe. Also while they do have some minor communicative capabilities with each other they seem to be limited to “hey back off”, “hey I’m excited/interested in seeing you”, and “hey I’m scared/angry”. These also seem to be consistently seen expressed by leopard geckos in a group setting. What makes me think though is all species even strictly solitary species can express these same messages to each other. I think a good example to relate to leopard geckos when it comes to social structure is oddly enough crocodilians. The groups initially forms due to animals simultaneously seeking out the same optimal habitat and resources (in the case of the geckos being hiding opportunities, and food), and the convenient large number of females sparks a breeding response in males, and competition and sexual selection influences the evolution of competitive, and harem behavior which leads to males fighting over dominance of the conveniently gathered groups of females and resources. That’s why they are at their root solitary as even though they can be commonly observed in a group they are not in a group for the direct benefit of social interaction or a group dynamic, not do they seem to have noticeable behaviors or health based signs of stress when they are living solitary. they are simply there because they were communally drawn to local resources, and the opportunity to mate. Essentially while they are not technically solitary in the literal terms of being alone all of the time, they aren’t really interacting with each other beyond what we see from other solitary species “ie mating, competing for resources” which means besides mating there really isn’t a substantial beneficial reason these animals are in these groups.

@@LeesInTheD social animals are social at their core because it provides benefits to their survival, leopard geckos don’t Share resources, they don’t coordinate with each other, they don’t use each other for protection, and if anything colonies seem to be a source of enrichment that comes with minor long term stress which is only tolerated as I said because of resources and breeding. That’s why I don’t think solitary confinement is a proper term as that implies that the animal requires social interaction, when this species simply uses interaction to avoid direct competition for habitat and resources, and for access to mates.

how big is the tank what is their sex?

And what if everything I have said in this video is right? If more evidence accumulates to suggest that social interaction improves the welfare of leopard geckos, what then? Would this video be "dangerous" and "irresponsible"? If, having taken all of the information onboard that I have shared in this video, a person acts with the result that their animals have a better quality of living, am I in the wrong? I do not believe for one second that just because a few people will ignore the majority of the video (and the description, and the discussions in the comments) and simply look for an excuse to keep some leopard geckos together, regardless of the husbandry they offer or how experienced they are with the species, that this is a good enough reason to stay silent. Those people will cram their leopard geckos together in a shoe box whether they can conjure up a go-ahead from me or they can't; they'll hunt around the internet until they find someone else who says they can do it. I, for one, will not bury my head in the sand because people don't have the patience to listen to the full story. Maybe if the people who have a real voice on this platform (not me with a couple of thousand subscribers - the people with tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions of keepers looking to them for guidance) were to do a better job at getting across the basics of proper husbandry, like having large enclosures, proper lighting rigs, providing mental and physical stimulation beyond feeding, and so on, the average beginner would not be so likely to run into problems with cohabitation. If you shove three leopard geckos into an unlit plastic box with a dish of water, one hiding place, and one bowl full of mealworms, and they begin to squabble - well, I'd ask, "what did you expect?" No, the thing that is wrong - what is "dangerous" and "irresponsible" - is just following what the good ol' Internet guru says is right and not questioning it. If only people would sit back and think about what is laid out before them - if only! - then I could make videos like this (which actively invite discussion, I should hope) and get more feedback than "no, DON'T do that, I heard it was the wrong thing to do!" (As it happens, the comments section here is mostly good discussion, which I am glad about. The comments around where it has been posted to Facebook - less so.) Such-a-body with 100k subscribers says "you can keep leopard geckos in racks, they'll thrive in this environment", and people believe it. There's no debate about it, no querying - nothing of the sort. Is that what I have done here? Told people that they can keep leopard geckos in groups without further explanation? Well I bloody well hope that's not how it comes across, because I've spent too many years trying not to do exactly that sort of thing to learn that I'm as bad at it as everyone else. I start out the video with an overview of where I am heading. I then give the orthodox opinion first, so that anyone watching who has no further idea about the topic can know what the majority of people hold to be correct. I then refer to several scientific papers to illustrate why I do not think that the orthodox view is entirely correct, and I discuss how we can take action to mitigate the issues associated with cohabitation (having attempted to define what sorts of behaviour we actually want our animals to perform, if any). I show the introduction between my leopard geckos and tell people about the (incredibly minor) scuffles I have witnessed over food - anyone is free to judge these observations as they will. I then round of the video by summarising the points made and telling people that if they are new to leopard geckos, they should give it a few years before thinking about cohabbing. All of this has been peer reviewed by a panel of five who I will not name but are surely five of the best people I could want to check over this video for me. They spent a week talking over it before they got back to me and I made changes to the video so that it formed a clearer argument. If someone comes along, sees two leopard geckos in the thumbnail and takes that as enough evidence that they can bung a couple of their own together... Good luck to them. I have tried my best. Now, with regards space, this is a real issue. Let us accept for one second, with absolute clarity and certainty, whether this is actually right or it isn't, that leopard geckos do benefit from social interaction, even if they do need to get away from each other at times. Then what would be worse: them never making contact with conspecifics because they are housed alone, or them not being able to remain separate for more than a couple of hours? If the geckos are fairly harmonious in the enclosure, i.e. one isn't being chased around by the others (which, if it were to continue, I would say was cause to split the group, if only for a while - the option of separation is the biggest factor pushing cohabitation towards long-term feasibility in my mind), then even though they cannot be as separate as they would be in the wild, they can at least be away from each other (sleeping in a different hide; at the other end of the enclosure; up the background). If you keep just one gecko on its own, then no matter how hard it tried it would never find company. You can have a communally housed leopard gecko which is basically alone (because it has moved away from the others, contingent on a proper enclosure design), but you cannot have a singly housed leopard gecko which can interact socially. I have argued in the video that I think the assumption made at the start of this paragraph is well-founded; therefore, I think that communal housing is the lesser of two evils. Evil it is nonetheless, because it is not as good as the ideal where the geckos have the option of complete solitude, but in all practical situations this optimum will never be attained. One is left wondering whether captivity is excusable at all, and I do sit back and think about it often.

I think many of the points in this video are correct, but what IM worried about is the badly informed reptile keepers looking for an excuse to keep their Leo’s together in a small tank, like the commenter said.HOWEVER, this is not really a fault of the video. And I believe that with the instructions in the video and a large enclosure it can be done and can be beneficial.

@@JTBReptiles I agree with you for the most part, however, i believe this video will be used by inexperienced owners to excuse housing leopard geckos together and I believe that's a really dangerous thing for the hobby.

California kingsnakes are similar. In their preferred habitat, they can occur in small groups, likely related. Could be seasonal, not sure. At any rate duplicating social behavior like this in captivity would be next level. It has been done actually by a few many years ago.