About Afrogecko porphyreus (Daudin, 1802)
Afrogecko porphyreus has a mottled greyish body, a long tail, and sometimes a pale stripe running along its back. Its coloration varies widely, ranging from almost black-and-buff patterning to smudged shades of buff. It is a small adaptable forager that hides under debris, beneath bark, among rocks, and even inside city houses. This gecko eats large quantities of small insects, so a population living on a property acts as a natural form of pest control. Its full diet includes a range of invertebrates, including feeder insects. Domestic cats commonly kill large numbers of these small lizards, and sometimes eliminate entire local populations. They are also preyed on by spider species in the genus Palystes, which may be more effective predators of these geckos than cats are. Like many similar gecko species, one of Afrogecko porphyreus’s main defenses is tail autotomy. In some populations, almost all mature individuals have either fully regenerated tails or tails that are currently in the process of regenerating. This gecko is commonly found in the southern parts of South Africa, ranging from Cape Town, where it now lives in suburban gardens, eastward to the Eastern Cape. A. porphyreus is not aggressive or territorial, and multiple individuals will often share a single retreat. These social lizards even share nests, where several females will lay their eggs together.
