Is there a marked difference in behavior between the two?
like anything captive bred you are looking at a much better temperament and the benefits of improved health. I’m not familiar with the breed, but usually, CB is the way to go for most animals.
WC animals will also likely have a substantial parasite load that will need treated if they aren’t already by the supplier. This bodily stress along with all the other stresses of being wild means that WC animals usually have a significantly reduced lifespan (unknown age and medical history upon capture, significant stress, etc).
Get captive bred. It’s worth the extra money upfront. If you buy WC, you will end up spending way more than you save on vet bills to get the WC gecko treated for parasites and whatever other health issues they might come in with. Plenty of WC reptiles do not survive the attempt to acclimate them to captivity, even with perfect husbandry and proper vet care. Captive bred individuals will be much healthier, and also tend to have better temperaments, since they’ll have been interacting with humans their whole lives and have not gone through a very stressful capture and import process.
In my opinion, the only people who should really even be considering buying a WC animal are people who a) are already very familiar with the species in question, b) are very knowledgeable about acclimating WC specimens to captivity, and c) have a good reason to be getting WC over CB, like someone trying to establish a species in captivity and/or needing to add genetic diversity to their breeding projects.
If you’re looking for a pet or aiming to be a hobby breeder, I cannot advise getting captive bred animals strongly enough.
Thank you all very much. I bought my AFT weeks back and never asked seller if it was wild caught. I know they are generally very shy creatures but wanted to check to see if there is a huge difference.
But he is eating regularly and gaining weight ![]()
While I’m not super familiar with AFTs, I feel like the vast majority of AFTs in the hobby are captive bred, so odds are your little guy is indeed CB and is just shy. Just because an animal is CB doesn’t necessarily mean that it has no instinctual fear of humans. Not all breeders make an effort to socialize their babies prior to sale, and even if they do, some individuals are just naturally very shy and fearful. Some also just take time to settle in to a new home.
Since it sounds like your gecko has had some time to settle and is eating well, you can start to work on socializing him. Regular short, positive interactions with some consistency and patience can go a really long way in getting a shy animal to trust you enough to start coming out of their shell.
Thanks! I’ve been working very patiently with him. Last night he came up very close and was sniffing my hand. He is being very patient.