Many species of herps are trafficked — that is, they are in captivity only in virtue of some combination of the following:

Smuggling: removing a living thing from its range state without permission from the relevant authority.

Laundering: misidentifying a living thing as to species or origin (place of origin; also whether wild collected or captive bred) in order to acquire permits or other legal requirements to transport or sell it.

Other less clearly categorized elements of trafficking such as marketing and selling of smuggled and/or laundered species or offspring of such species, and promulgating disinformation about these species as to their origin or identification.  

Some species are relatively easy to determine to be trafficked.  For example, if you see a captive specimen of herp endemic to Australia, you can be 99% certain that it or its progenitors were trafficked, since Australia doesn’t export herps for commercial purposes (with about a half dozen isolated exceptions that have yet to include any gecko or bearded dragon species).

Others are harder to determine.  One that is a bit of a complex case is Uroplatus fiera.  This species was first described in 2015; before that, it was considered to be just another example of Uroplatus ebenaui.  U. ebenaui is exported in large numbers from Madagascar (the country to which both these species are endemic), and at least before 2015 could have reasonably been expected to have some U. fiera included in those exports. (Since its scientific description, Uroplatus fiera has never been permitted for export.)

But after 2015, the two species could be distinguished.  Uroplatus fiera grows a bit larger, but more vividly has a completely different color skin on the inside of of its wouth: U. fiera has a typical pink mouth lining, but the mouth of U. ebenaui is jet black inside (there are numerous other differences in scale and lamellae count and hemipene morphology, but the oral color is easy to see at a glance).  

Also, it turns out that the ranges of the two species are different as well.  Uroplatus ebenaui lives in the west and north of the island, in dry lowland forests; U. fiera lives on the east side of the island at intermediate altitudes, and the two ranges are separated by highlands.

These factors — that the two species are easily distinguished by anyone sorting animals for export, and that the range of fiera is well away from that of ebenaui — makes any confusion between the two completely avoidable.  Specimens of Uroplatus fiera currently exported as U. ebenaui are undoubtedly being intentionally laundered.  Importers bringing these mixed ebenaui/fiera shipments into the US are supporting this laundering through their purchases, and are directly and actively undermining conservation of this species.  At this point in time, there’s no reason at all to import wild collected U. ebenaui into the US, as they’re being bred here, and imported from Europe and Ukraine, in sufficient numbers to support hobby demand.

Without documented evidence that a given Uroplatus fiera being offered is derived from animals imported prior to 2015, all U. fiera should be rejected for purchase, as should all wild collected U. ebenaui, which are supporting the laundering of U. fiera.


Gehring, Philip-Sebastian, 2020.  Leaf-Tailed Geckos — the Complete Uroplatus.  Edition Chimaira.

Ratsoavina, Fanomezana & RANJANAHARISOA, FIADANANTSOA & Glaw, Frank & Raselimanana, Achille Philippe & Miralles, Aurélien & Vences, Miguel. (2015). A new leaf-tailed gecko of the Uroplatus ebenaui group (Squamata: Gekkonidae) from Madagascar's central eastern rainforests. Zootaxa. 4006. 143-160. 10.11646/zootaxa.4006.1.7. 

Many -- or perhaps most -- people who keep herps don't breed them.  If everyone who did keep herps actively bred them, we might be overrun by captive animals. Or would we?

Consider a species that reproduces regardless of almost anything the keeper does to prevent it: the mourning gecko (Lepidodactylus lugubris).  Mourning geckos lay two eggs at a time (usually), year round every month or two, and do so from about a year old. They're parthenogenic, so they lay eggs whether the keeper intends them to or not. The number of mourning geckos in a population should show exponential growth, unless something happens to remove geckos from the population. 

So, one gecko is one gecko for a year, and then after another year is 11 geckos (conservatively: a clutch every two months, of two eggs each except two of those clutches are singletons), then after another year is 121 geckos, then after another year is 1331 geckos, and so on.

Let's say two mourning geckos are kept captive (we could start with one, but since they're social that wouldn't be very nice, now would it?).  At the end of their lifespan of 10 years, we should expect there to be 4.7 million mourning geckos.  

Well, we might expect them not to breed up until death.  But at the end of five years (one year to become mature, and four years of offspring), there should be 29,000 geckos.  

Perhaps the initial numbers, in spite of looking fairly conservative, were too high.  Suppose each gecko produces half as many offspring as was assumed.  Even with those unrealistically low numbers, our initial two would be almost 2,600 geckos in five years.  Does the overall captive population of mourning geckos increase by 1300 times every five years? I think it does not.

Figuring out why there aren't nearly as many mourning geckos in captivity as expected might not be best done mathematically.  It might be done by considering whether we're keeping mourning geckos in ways that benefit them.  Do we tend to keep them at their optimal temperatures -- that is, to we allow them to bask to maintain a preferred 85F body temperature? Do they, in virtue of being basking thermoregulators, benefit from UVB?  Do they really benefit from being kept with dart frogs? (The answers here, of course, are: no, not usually; yes, possibly; no, definitely not, and neither do the frogs).  

Mourning geckos are just an easy example, since we know exactly how many of them reproduce.  But how many other captive herp species maintain low numbers in captivity for reasons other than their breeding rate?  That is, how much does neglect factor in to population numbers of captive herps?

Werner, Yehuda. Do gravid females of oviparous gekkonid lizards maintain elevated body temperatures? Hemidactylus frenatus and Lepidodactylus lugubris on Oahu, January 1990, Amphibia-Reptilia 11(2):200-204.