enigma help

worrying to death after reading about enigma that cleo is as im always catching her staring into space even if i move my hand right in front of her nose she wont respond then other times shes skitish as anything just sits gazing at nothing so distant the wall her ceiling or sits half up her wall nearly vertical and just stays there can someone point me to a good resource place t check on this

What would you like to know about enigmas? What you are describing is what enigmas do, it's part of the enigma syndrome. There are other enigma syndromes, such as walking in circles when stressed, unable to catch prey due to bad aim, stop eating due to stress from breeding, ovulation, or something as simple as bright light, etc..

They are also pretty bad at shedding, so you would likely have to help them shed. They like to turn upside down, while some people think it's "cute", geckos don't breath well upside down and enigmas have been reported to die while being upside down.

As far as we know, it's some sort of neurological defect in their genes. Enigma genes get passed down and even if you have a healthy enigma that shows no syndrome, the gene that gets passed down to offsprings could still trigger the harsh effects.

If you are asking what you can do to help it, there's nothing you can do to stop the syndrome. There's no cure, nothing sort of leaving it alone and giving it as less stress as possible. There's no cure to stargazing, no cure to walking in circles, no cure if they stop wanting to eat all of a sudden.

I have hatched out a few in my day but like a lot of you after seeing what they acted like and how some of them had difficulties to thrive in some cases, I chose not to breed them any longer. Actually there is a few other reasons that I stopped as well that I can get into more later.

I can tell you it is neurological. Basically it is a vestibular disorder that causes lack of balance and the world to the gecko is spinning. That is what causes the head tilt and the walking in circles.

I have found that babies that are in later clutches from the same female are worse in their symptoms.

Some crosses make it worse as well. Out crossing to subspecies or wild types sometimes can make it better. but not always.

It is amplified by stress. shipping, breeding, ect.

when they were first debuted and sold to the public. They were randomly hets for different things and buyers were not notified. what this caused was a genetic mixing of different albino strains and the loss of purity in that line. This was cause by the original US breeder thought that the "Red eyed enigma" was a super form. this of course was not true and it was just a bell enigma. unfortunately before the release of the enigmas to the public the Red Eyed ones were bred to Tremper blazzing blizzards causing a mixture of the two albino strains. these geckos were sold as is and no one knew. This caused a muddying of the waters of any line that was bred to the enigmas.

Because of this I had to actually go through my collection and I gave away all of my enigmas and siblings and anything that was from any line that had enigma bred into it. so basically I had to restart a lot of my collection. I didn't have to do this but I didn't want to take any chances in mixing of any albino strains. It was a Pain in the @$$ hahahahah

I still do own a couple enigmas but I wont bred them any longer to sell to the public. They are just pets to me at this point. One just so happens to be my Male Dreamsickle, Mr Dreamy. what he looks like now


He was the first one ever made and just has always been special to me. he is now 4 years old.

here is a video that i made a few years ago about enigmas and the combos. it shows the walking in a circle thing as well. the quality isn't that good in the video i didn't have my new camera at the time.




I hope this helps if you need any more info I would love to help

Ok, so I could be very wrong on this but to me the large male that is in the first picture looks to me like a dreamsicle. Hmmmm, I would need someone to confirm this though.

yes the picture is of a Dreamsickle.

he was actually the first one ever made.

thanks for your help all i will keep an eye on her and see how she goes,
probably just nerves as its my first leo but just wanted more info incase

Sounds like you already got enough help and answers here, but if you have any more questions about enigmas feel free to shoot any my way, as I own a few and they are my favorite morph (at the moment), and have quite alot of research committed to brain lol