Geckos are easy to keep, but do some research before taking one home

Joshua Lee has taken care of his leopard gecko Dino for the past four years. Every day, he changes Dino's water, cleans up any droppings and feeds him five or six live crickets.

'I put them all in front of him and he'll eat two and probably run after the other ones,' Lee says. 'If a cricket's dead or not moving, he won't eat it. But when he's ready to attack, he'll move his tail as a distraction [for the cricket], then jump at it.' Dino sheds his skin from time to time. 'There are pieces of his skin lying around on the ground, but later it'll be gone because he eats it,' Lee says. 'It's very light, almost like a feather.' While snakes discard their skin, geckos consume their outer layer for its calcium content.

According to veterinarian Zoltan Szabo, at Tai Wai Small Animal and Exotic Hospital, there are more than 2,000 gecko species in the wild. While geckos are rarely kept as pets in Hong Kong, the most common gecko in captivity is the leopard gecko.

Gecko breeder Nathan Gibbons, at Toronto-based Northern Reptile, says: 'Some geckos make good pets, they are quiet and easy to maintain. And for kids they are really low maintenance. It's less work than keeping a hamster.'

The use of improper equipment in the aquarium, which is relatively common, can cause blindness. 'Some people get cheap ultraviolet lighting for desert conditions, but geckos aren't made to take in light,' Gibbons says. 'Some geckos don't even have eyelids, so without a proper hiding spot [in the aquarium] that would be the worst-case scenario for possible blindness.'

He adds geckos should live in a cycle of 12 hours of light and 12 hours off. 'For most geckos it's best to have a significant drop in temperature, so turning off the light at night is ideal,' explains Gibbons, who has been breeding geckos, snakes and tortoises for the past 20 years.