Small, stock, and with a distinctive tail and scalation, meet the carrot-tailed viper gecko.
Once quite commonly seen in the pet trade, for twofold reasons the little carrot-tailed viper gecko, Hemidactylus imbricatus (formerly Teratolepis fasciatus) is now harder to acquire. Firstly, there are almost no shipments coming to the USA from the Pakistan homeland of this gecko and secondly, for reasons not yet understood some breeders have found the hatchlings delicate. Hatchlings are said to often succumb within the first few weeks of their life.

This gecko of the rocky deserts attains an adult length of about 3 inches and is of stocky build. Despite its small size, once past the rather delicate hatchling stage, this is a hardy gecko that can live for many years in captivity on a diet of vitamin-calcium dusted baby crickets and tiny roaches.

The polygonal body scales are relatively small and only weakly imbricate. However the scales on the carrot-shaped tail are large and strongly imbricate.

My first examples came from a Pakistani friend in the early 60s. All arrived alive, bred readily, and within a year I had added several hatchlings to the growing colony.

Be these Hemidactylus or Teratolepis, they are an alert, primarily terrestrial, easily kept gecko, that is well worthy of consideration.

Additional reading: Bauer, Aaron M.; Varad B. Giri, Eli Greenbaum, Todd R. Jackman,
Mahesh S. Dharne and Yogesh S. 2008. On the Systematics of the Gekkonid Genus Teratolepis Günther, 1869: Another One Bites the Dust. Hamadryad 32 (2): 90-104