The Kids Are Getting Older...and so are the Mali's

Yes the kids are getting older. Brendan just turned 20 not too long ago. Celina will be 25 in the not too distant future. Heck they really are not kids any longer. Next thing you know they will be married and Linda and I will be grandparents.

The Mali Uromastix are older too, they are only just about 2 years or so old I think. Can I call them kids? I suppose not any more. They are starting to to acquire their adult coloration. The male, the one in the pic to the upper right, is really showing his adult colors with the blacks and yellows starting to come in nicely and the female has some slight yellowish in the creamish colored areas but as to be expected she is much more drab than is the male. Note that in the pic of the male, the yellowish light in the upper left hand corner of the shot is from the tortoise tank. It is not effecting the color of the Mali at all - he was right in the flash and you can see from the surface there is no yellow from the lamp interfering with his coloration. The way he looks in this shot is the way he looks with some variation due to temperature.

Hopefully within another year or two they will be breeding and producing fertile eggs. My guess is that in the wild they may take longer to mature but in captivity when cared for well with a readily available good diet they mature earlier. My pair is well cared for. No I don't treat em like my kids but they do eat well and get the light and heat they need to grow big and strong.

All the best,

Glenn B