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Originally Posted by nycherper
Thats great anthony! How long were they in the fridge? Sounds funny!
Little confused, if they don't need to mate, how is a hyrbid formed from two different Lepidodactylus species?
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I left them in the fridge for three minutes...just long enough to get them to not run for the hills when I took them out.
Lepidodactylus lugubris is not actually its own species. It's a hybrid of two other Lepidodactylus species. When a male Lepidodactylus sp. (a species that has never been named) and a female Lepidactylus moestus first bred, they created a hybrid that we now know as L. lugubris.
Normally, hybrids are not named as their own species, but they had already been described and named Lepidodactylus lugubris before anyone ever realized that it was actually a hybrid of two other Lepidodactylus species.
Anyhow, when the two parent species breed, some of the hybrid (L. lugubris) babies are males and they can successfully breed with a female L. lugubris (although it's not necessary) or a female L. moestus (the maternal parent species).
In the wild, sometimes those male L. lugubris will breed a female L. moestus...making what you would call a triploid clone, which is still considered L. lugubris and is still parthenogenic. Another way to get a triploid clone would be for a male of the paternal parent species (Lepidodactylus sp.) to breed a female L. lugubris.
I'm no expert on the subject, so it's kinda hard to explain, but you can go to this link to read more about it...
http://www.geckoworld.net/care_l.lugubris2.htm