An omnivore's two-part menu
The gargoyle gecko comes from New Caledonia, where it spends the day wedged into bark and the night moving through branches eating soft fruit, pollen, and whatever insects it can overpower. Captive feeding copies that split. A complete powdered gecko diet, mixed with water to a thick smoothie consistency, supplies the fruit side together with protein and added calcium. Live insects supply the hunting side. Neither half alone is the full picture: powder-only geckos miss the exercise and stimulation of the chase, and insect-only geckos easily drift into calcium trouble.
Serve the powdered diet in a small cup or ledge feeder in the evening and refresh it every other day. Gargoyles are individuals about flavors and textures, so a gecko who ignores one brand's mix may eat another's eagerly; a refusal of one powder is a shopping problem, not a hunger strike.
The insect half of the week
Offer live insects two or three times a week: crickets and small roaches sized no wider than the gap between the gecko's eyes, and black soldier fly larvae, which are naturally calcium-rich and soft enough for a gecko whose bite is built for fruit and modest prey. Dust crickets and roaches lightly with calcium before they go in, even though the powdered diet is fortified, because the insects eaten that night are a meal in their own right.
Feed insects in the evening and count what you put in. Gargoyle geckos are deliberate hunters rather than frantic ones, and uneaten crickets left loose will hide in the cork bark, chirp all night, and nibble at a sleeping gecko. A smooth-sided feeding cup for roaches or larvae keeps the hunt contained and makes leftovers easy to remove.
Fruit, treats, and what stays out
A gargoyle will happily lap mashed ripe mango, papaya, or banana from a fingertip, and a small taste once in a while is a fine trust-building tool. It should stay a taste. Plain fruit lacks the protein and calcium balance of the formulated diet, and sweetened baby food, a holdover from older keeping habits, delivers sugar without the nutrition and can displace real meals in a small stomach.
Juveniles and females producing eggs sit at the high-need end of the range. Growing gargoyles should find fresh powder available most nights and insects at the frequent end of the schedule, and a juvenile who is only offered food twice a week will grow slowly no matter how good the diet is.
Watching weight on a stocky gecko
Gargoyles are naturally broader and heavier-set than crested geckos, with a thick tail they can drop and slowly regrow. Judge condition by the ribs and hips rather than the silhouette: ribs should be felt faintly under the skin, not seen sharply, and the tail base should be full without the belly bulging sideways at rest. A gecko who parks at the powder cup and empties it nightly may need smaller portions rather than nightly refills.
Sudden appetite loss in this hardy species usually points at the enclosure first: temperatures that have crept too warm, a dry tank without a proper humid hide for shedding, or a recent move. A gecko off food for more than a week, losing tail thickness, or showing a soft, bendy jaw needs a reptile veterinarian, and notes about which foods were accepted last will help narrow the cause.
Alternating foods without losing the thread
Powder one night, insects the next, a rest night after that: the gargoyle rotation is simple on paper and surprisingly easy to scramble across a household, ending in three powder nights and no insects for a fortnight. Write the rotation down where the tank is. Through KinsLe, Care Teams lays that rotation out as assigned feeding duties for this gecko, with each one marked done at the time it happened, keeping the balance between bowl and bugs that this species is built on.