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[spidergecko]

I posted this on Geckworld but I thought I would share it with this board, too.

I had a spider gecko egg that was overdue and I accidentally cracked it a few days ago. I was going to wait until Friday to bust it open in case the baby was still alive and needed some more growing but I decided to do it today.

This is the story and pictures will follow. It appears the baby did not survive the incubation and died sometime after development. The egg was very small and it seems the gecko was unable to break itself free. It was the tiniest little baby spider gecko I have seen - about 1" long. I know it was dead even before I cracked the egg because it no longer had the vein-covered membrane that usually covers the baby. I guess the most humane thing I could have done was destroy the egg right after it was laid but I didn't.

Anyway, here are the pics. They are very sad to look at.

This is the egg before I began breaking it open.


This is the underside of the egg. You can see how the oil from the yolk is leaching out of the egg.


This is the first piecing into the egg. You probably can't identify it but that is a skinny little leg and a bit of the tail.


Here you can see the baby's lower jaw and ear hole. Its mouth is open a bit.


Aww, here are the sad pics. This is the baby almost out of the egg. It is very dry in the egg and the dark patches on the shell are where the baby was stuck to it. I had trouble removing shell at these parts.


I soaked the little baby in some warm water and removed the rest of the shell and the retained egg yolk. So this is the curled baby.


This is the baby's underside. You can see the little curled toes and the little blob in the middle of his belly is the "umbilical cord" that I snipped away from the yolk sac. Notice the crumpled tail.


And finally, this is the baby from the top. Poor thing


The images are sad but I hope they are informative at the very least. Everything is a learning experience and I felt the need to share.

What a great first post!
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Mike
Spidergecko.com

GECKOWORLD
...Your Online Gecko Resource!

[Scott W]

Hi Mike, thanks for sharing.

It's not a pleasant thing to find. I had a bad run of rhacodactylus eggs, couldn't get any to hatch for period. I would open the eggs to find fully formed dead young. I even managed to 'feel' the odd live one that was ready to hatch and then slit the egg, the baby would almost 'shoot out' the egg. These ones survived. I have now worked out the incubation and have had the last 40 eggs hatch no problems and have another 100 plus still to hatch.


Why do you think your spider gecko went full term but failed to hatch? just too small and weak? was it last of the season's eggs?
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Please DO NOT pm orders for reptiles, send email instead scott@captivebred.co.uk

[spidergecko]