All was quiet in the reptile room of Ron Peteroy’s Staten Island home one recent Wednesday morning, save the soft chirp of a few doomed crickets. But in and around the hundreds of glass tanks and plastic tubs that lined the walls, bulgy-eyed creatures were stirring.

A fan-footed gecko darted down the wall after a bug. A baby mourning gecko, 2 days old and inchworm-size, scampered across Mr. Peteroy’s finger. A gargoyle gecko, chunky with mottled red and black stripes, gargoyled atop her cage.

Some people think furry mammals make nice pets. Mr. Peteroy recommends a reptile.

“A cat is a cat is a cat is a cat,” he said. “They may be different sizes, different fur patterns, different size ears. But you’ve got lizards with no legs, you’ve got lizards with two legs, you’ve got lizards with four legs, you’ve got snakes that have remnants of legs. You find me a blue, green and yellow cat or a blue, green and yellow dog.”

Blue, green, yellow, pink. Teal to tawny from one minute to the next. Stripes and spots and swirling scales. Eyeballs patterned like galaxies. There is no end to the marvels of the lizard, particularly, in Mr. Peteroy’s opinion, the gecko.