What is it about?
Standard pet terrariums are often small, which limits how much room a reptile has to explore and move around. A year-long study tracked an adult female leopard gecko that was given access to a standard rodent exercise wheel to see if a reptile would choose to use it and how far it would travel.
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Photo by Jason Mavrommatis on Unsplash
Why is it important?
This research shows that exercise wheels are not just for hamsters or small mammals. Providing a running wheel gives captive leopard geckos a safe, voluntary way to increase their physical activity, stay mentally engaged, and enjoy a better quality of life in home or laboratory environments.
Perspectives
Exercise wheels have long been considered tools exclusively for mammals, so observing a leopard gecko voluntarily walk such substantial distances over twelve months was fascinating. This project really highlighted the strong connection between seasonal temperature fluctuations and voluntary activity, even indoors. I hope this paper sparks broader interest in studying reptile exercise physiology and normalizes simple physical enrichment across all squamate species.
RICHARD DIGIROLAMO
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Exercise-wheel enrichment for a captive leopard gecko Eublepharis macularius: An assessment of distance travelled, The Herpetological Journal, March 2026, British Herpetological Society,
DOI: 10.33256/hb175.2023.
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