African fat-tailed gecko
species of reptile
The African fat-tailed gecko or fat-tail gecko (Hemitheconyx caudicinctus) is a ground-dwelling species of gecko from West Africa and Cameroon.
Description
The African fat-tailed gecko is from the subfamily Eublepharinae. This subfamily has visibly different characteristics from other geckos. They are terrestrial, and have moveable eyelids, vertical pupils, and no adhesive lamellae.
The African fat-tailed gecko is typically around 7–8 inches in length, and up to 75 grams in weight, with females being slightly smaller than males. Normal coloring is brown and tan/beige stripes, with a possible thin white stripe along the length of the back. The underbelly is pale pink or off-white.
The tails of African fat-tailed geckos serve an important purpose to them. Their tails are used for fat storage, so when food is scarce their tails are able to sustain them for a while. Their tails also contribute significantly to their defense from predators.
“African fat-tailed gecko” enters the record as species of reptile. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what African, fat-tailed and gecko can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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The date and method of observation matter as much as the stated conclusion, especially where classification or consensus has changed. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 30, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2087254. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “African fat-tailed gecko” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.