Thar Be Dragons...

...in my basement. Well lizards whose heads resemble those of dragons anyhow. I have had a pair of crested Geckos together in a tank since early this year or late last year. While I was away in Tucson for 4 months, Brendan took good care of them. In fact he took such good care of them that they got into breeding condition and the female laid 6 eggs in my absence. I found the eggs when i got home. two of them had holes in them and were quite empty. I thought maybe they had hatched and the parents had eaten the babies but as it turns out the eggs were probably eaten into by either crickets or a species of darkling beetle (Zophobas morio). I do not know the common name, if any of the beetle but its larva is called the Superworm and is a common food insect for pet reptiles. Well that meant I still had 4 possibly good eggs. I took those 4 and put them into a plastic container with some damp cypress mulch. I kept them at room temps, about 72 - 75 degrees Fahrenheit.

Tonight, I was going to show Brendan that 2 of the eggs had really gotten larger, they do so as they absorb moisture and as the baby grows inside, and there was a head sticking out of one of the bigger ones when I looked in the container. It is a nice looking baby - nice color, looks healthy, yada-yada. Hopefully it will turnout to be a female, they are much more valuable than males; and of course my one male can be kept with a harem of a few females. Time will tell, but it will take several months or more. Now though is the time for me to set up a new tank for the little ones (yes I am hopeful the other eggs will hatch soon). I cannot keep them with the adults unless I want them to wind up being dinner for the larger ones.

All the best,

Glenn B

Alone In Tucson Again...

...but while Brendan was here we had a few good times together despite the fact that I was under the weather.

The high point of his trip may have been when he looked down while in Pima Canyon. He looked down, exclaimed something to the effect of "Oh golly shit", prodded around with the end of my walking stick in the then dry sand of the wash, and came up with a Cold Steel brand machete still in its case. Granted it was pretty rusted being that he found it in the middle of the wash in an area that had water in it (not water in that exact spot but water only feet away from it and upstream at that, so the sand there was probably damp a lot) on each of my previous visits, but it was a pretty neat find. Of course he could not take it home with him on the plane since he only had a carry-on bag but I figure I'll find someplace for it in my checked luggage when I return home. Once home I think we will have to see if we can restore it some by getting the rust off of it. Strange thing is that even though badly rusted, even pitted in some places, it still held a very sharp edge and my guess would be that it would still have been effective used for its intended purpose despite the time, the ling time, it probably spent in the wash.

Of course we also found some other things on the Pima Canyon Trail and those included a lot of lizards and some good views. In the lizard department we were hoping to get to see a Gila Monster repeating my luck of a previous hike there. While we did not duplicate that bit of good fortune we did see something that neither of us had seen in the area before and we saw it quite possibly because of good trail manners we had just exercised. You see, we were hiking back down out of the canyon. At the same time as us, there was a group of three other guys hiking down who were behind us a bit. They were walking at a pace just above ours and after a while of hearing them chatting behind us it was time for us to move to the side and let them pass and they politely thanked us. Well after a short while we decided to take a break to drink some water and to give me a rest. I was pooped, shame on me for hiking while having the flu, but it was Brendan's last full day here and I was going to make sure he did something fun. As it turned out, the three guys we had let pass us only minutes before were up ahead all bent over looking at something on the ground. Brendan asked if i wanted to stop where we stood, a place I had actually had in mind to stop at, but when I saw those three so intensely peering at something I said 'let's move on a bit'. The three guys soon straightened up and continued their hike and we soon got to the spot where they had been peering at something. I sat down, as did Brendan, and almost no sooner than we sat he blurted out something like 'check it out'. There was a Collared Lizard, a male in full breeding colors, that had just run up the trail directly at us. It stopped only a few feet away, watched us a moment or two as I took some pics of it over Brendan's shoulder (all blurry at that), ran off the trail a few feet, stopped at a rock with an obvious hollow under it, peered into the hole and then disappeared into it. We decided to try to catch it. Brendan lifted the rock and before I could even think about making a grab the little guy ran back onto the trail. The thing is another collared lizard, apparently a female, also took off from under the same rock.

These lizards are normally very wary of their surroundings and any potential threats like hawks, roadrunners, coyotes and herpers (they would have been us). This guy was very bold indeed staying pretty close, and the reason he was staying close was obvious - he was horny! Typical guy I suppose, a pretty female nearby makes us all brazen. Brendan got a shot or two of the female (the one on the rocks at left), and he and I both got some shots of the male (the one in the pic above next to the backpack). While she ran under some bushes and was harder to photograph, he stayed out in the open for over 5 minutes, moving back and forth along the trail. He even posed next to my backpack. When you look at the pic of him, click on it to enlarge it then look at the yellow spots. While the pic may not do them justice you can get some sense of just how luminescent were those spots in the daylight (and it was light overcast). That was a great find made by my son's sharp eyes and in part at least based upon our good fortune due to us having had good trail manners earlier. If we hadn't had perfect timing we would never have seen it, and that perfect timing was due to our having moved aside on the trail. Coincidence? Maybe you think so but as for me I'll just take it as a rare instance of a good deed being rewarded for us instead of the typical "No good deed goes unpunished" sort of a thing.

It was a fine last day for his trip to Tucson, better than most that preceded it if not the best of all. As for me, I am here till the end of June, maybe even until the end of July since they asked me to extend. Sometimes it seems as if I just cannot get enough of this place.

All the best,

Glenn B

As The Lizard Saw Me...

I may have been just another big tempting meal that it wished it could eat. They were out and about in pretty good numbers, along with some others, but most were not quite as cooperative as was this one in letting me get as many shots. This one was fairly brazen and stayed around while I took several shots of it with my little point and shoot Canon on full auto mode. I am 100% sure, but am still fairly certain, that this is a Greater (or was it a Lesser) Earless Lizard, and since this one looks so darned faded I would say it is the subspecies known as the Faded Earless Lizard. I got this shot on this past Saturday along the Pima Canyon Trail.

Of course I would have been too big a meal for that lizard of only about 6-7 inches or so, but lizard apparently sometimes bite off more than they can chew. Here is a pic, of what I think was a Tree Lizard (Ornate Tree Lizard) and it apparently did just that, that is bit off more than it could chew. Egads, what a way to go. Then again, probably not a bad way for a lizard to bite the big one (yes that was an intentional pun). It probably was pretty much in ecstasy thinking mmm what a scrumptious morsel, and then well...you can figure the rest. As for the bug, I suppose it too may have been thinking a nice sized meal was about to be had, heck the lizard was not all that much bigger than it.

For those of you who are old enough to remember the original Addams Family on TV in the 60's - does this remind you of the Marlin with the person's lower leg and foot sticking out of its mouth. It sure struck a bell with me, a warning bell to take human bites!

All the best,

Glenn B

Bearded Whats?

Bearded Dragons, that's what. I have a few of them, 4 to be exact. Two of them are only about 3 to 4 months old, the other two are adults at just about 1.5 years old. Yep they mature quickly but then again they only live about 12 years. The two smaller ones that I have, I bought hoping to sell. No dice so I am stuck with them for now. That is okay, when they mature they will be worth a lot more, and I'll probably trade them anyhow. Trade em for what? Well other reptiles or amphibians - what else!

As for the two adults, well I got one of em for free. Got him from a gent at my local herpetological society. He asked me if I would take it, and i really did not want it but he could not care for it any longer and told me it was okay to give it away to someone who knows how to take care of it. I asked if he would mind me selling it and giving the money to the Long Island Herpetological Society as a donation and he was fine with that. Well it has been months now, maybe even a half of a year or more and I have him still. I just have not found any takers, so he was sharing an outside pen in the warmer weather, and now an inside tank with my other Bearded Dragon adult. Yes he is definitely a he.

As for the other one, if you know anything about BD's then yo know you usually cannot keep two males together unless you have a really large enclosure for them because they are just too territorial with one another. I don't have one that big, so you guessed it, the other one is a female. Males and females usually get along just fine together, and you could keep one male with a harem of several females if you wanted with no problems. That is so long as you kept them in a large enough enclosure, but that would still be one smaller than two males together would require. I cannot recall where I got the female. I remember I bought it from someone. It was not expensive, as I recall only $25.00; that was a steal. Yet the person who sold it to me knew its value and just wanted to make something off of it, and was otherwise basically adopting it out. I also figured I would sell her for a nice profit. I have had her for at least 4 to 5 months now. Wow that means I have had the male longer than 6 months, at least the way I figure it. It doesn't mater, I am stuck with em both.

Just three days or so ago, I noticed the female was starting to get very active, and was digging in the sand in the bottom of her enclosure. That along with the fact that she looked as if she had swallowed a bag of marbles was a sure sign that she was ready to lay eggs. Chances are she laid eggs once before, in the pen in my backyard over the summer. I never saw any hatchling, but if they hatched and I did not notice, I suppose they were dinner for mama and papa. What can I say. This time though she was inside, and I noticed she was gravid, and I placed a box full of slightly moistened sand and coconut fiber into her tank. After a day or two she was digging in that. I think it was this past Thursday night or Friday morning she laid her eggs. I was not too sure if she had more to lay, so on the second evening I placed a heat lamp over the area where the eggs had been laid and left it on throughout the clock. They wound up going through one night and part of the next day without added heat except for the tank lights during the day, but should be okay. I got them into an incubator today. I was really surprised to find 26 eggs in all. That is a good sized amount of eggs for a first or second clutch. They were all laid in the same area so I suppose she laid them all at once, instead of digging holes at different times to lay some each time.

If they all hatch out, and I should know in about 55 - 60 days I will be a happy made. I can possibly sell them for $20 apiece, maybe even a little more. I have not sold squat this year, so that would be good. If they start to develop nice color they will go for even more than a little more. That would be nice, but I ain't counting my chickens dragons until they have hatched. Even they the mortality rate is higher until they reach about 5 to 6 weeks at which time I can be pretty sure those that have survived will make it to adulthood. With any luck the eggs should start hatching by about December 16 - just in time for the Christmas rush. I will not even try to sell them then, they wont be sellable, as far as I am concerned, until they hit 5 or 6 weeks at the youngest. It is even better to wait until they reach 8 weeks old before buying one, especially if you are a first time Bearded Dragon person.

As far as them being pets, Bearded Dragons are probably the best common pet lizard that there is in the trade today. They are not difficult to care for so long as you follow so pretty basic guidelines such as lighting, heat, caging and feeding. They are also pretty mellow as far as lizards go. Sometimes you would think they are fake such as when you see someone walking around at a reptile expo with one on his or her shoulder, and the lizard is simply not fazed by almost anything. Of course you can always get the rare psychopathic Bearded Dragon, but they are few and far between.

They grow to about 18-20 inches on average, a lot of that being tail, and one or two adults can be kept in a 30 gallon long tank at a bare minimum. Bigger is better. I have two in a similarly sized tank now, but they share a much larger pen in my backyard during the warmer months from May or June through September. They require special lighting that gives off UVA and UVB radiation like the sun, and also require a hot spot in their enclosure up to 115 degrees Fahrenheit for basking. You can accomplish that with a combination of a heat lamp and UV bulbs, but I get by with a single bulb - a self ballasted mercury vapor bulb (made especially for lizard keeping). The lighting and tank are the most expensive items, and even tho0ugh each of the bulb cost me about $25, I saved money because I do not need two types of bulbs and therefore two separate fixtures. Actually I sue three types of bulbs on their tank but I could get away with just the one. I use the mercury vapor lamp over their basking sight, an incandescent bulb of much less wattage than the MV lamp over the center of the tank for some heat there, and a florescent lamp with a reptile bulb running from the center of the tank toward the other end. That way I am sure wherever they are in the tank they are getting the UVA and UVB they need. Now if you think about the set up of the lights I just mentioned you will realize one end of the tank is hot, the center is warm, and the other end is just about room temp. That temperature gradient is extremely important for bearded dragons as they are cold blooded and they thermoregulate (adjust their body temperature) by moving from warm to cool areas and vice versa. At night they do not require heat or light so long as temps do not go below the mid sixties Fahrenheit.

I give them some bricks on one end as a basking spot, a branch spans center tank and there is a brick and a piece of bark on the other cooler end for them to rest on. As to substrate I use fine 'play sand'. A good and secure screen cover goes over the top of the tank both to keep them in and to keep other pets like cats out. I place there food bowl for greens and other vegetables in the center of the tank. Feeding them is easy, they are usually hungry. As adults I feed them crickets about 3 to 4 times per week. I'll throw about 20 to 30 crickets in there that often. I also feed them greens daily. When I got the male I was told he rarely ate greens. he eats them now. I just stopped feeding him crickets for a week to 1o days, and he got hungry and ate the greens. Now he likes em, and that is the way it should be. Babies eat crickets at least 2x per day, and fresh greens should also be available at all times. As I have been told, 25 babies can easily go through a thousand 1/4" crickets in a week. As they grow older you feed them crickets less often, until as adults they get em as mine do now - 3 to 4x per week. As adults they eat adult crickets. I supplement the diet of crickets, and greens with: Superworms, Mealworms, Waxworms, vegetable (for convenience I use frozen mixed vegetable, thawed out first of course). The greens I feed them consist of leaf lettuce, mustard greens, dandelion greens, collard greens, turnip greens, broccoli rabe, and so forth. Not too much spinach should ever be given as it has a chemical which apparently prevents absorption of calcium in lizards. I spray my adults with water about 1 or 2x per week, that is it. Babies need to be sprayed a bit 2 to 3x per day, otherwise they can dehydrate.

Remember if you keep reptiles as pets, they can spread certain diseases to people such as Salmonella. Don't be too alarmed though; I have kept reptiles and amphibians for well over 45 years and have not contracted anything from they yet. Nor do I know firsthand of anyone else ever getting sick from them. From what I can tell by reading the Food and Drug Administration's website concerning salmonella (they are the ones responsible for the 4" turtle law), salmonella is much more likely to be caught from dairy products, undercooked eggs or chicken. You may also recall the salmonella scare this past summer where pepper were found to be the agent that was spreading this disease. The key to not catching salmonella seems to be good hygiene, so wash your hands and use alcohol gel after handling pets of any type, even your cats, dogs and birds. Keeping very young children away from such pets may also be advisable. If you have a concern go to FDA.gov and read up on it there, or go to there page about kids, reptiles and salmonella here. (Let me just point out that page has what I am pretty sure is some incorrect info, as in iguanas being the number one reptile pet. That seems far fetched to me as the popularity of iguanas as pets has declined markedly since they make poor pets, and dealers at reptile expos usually let people know this, most dealers not even selling them at all.)

If you want more detailed info on their care, you can find it here (I will only recommend the first one based on my opinion of and personal experience with it and the author, but you may also want to read the others.):

http://www.lihs.org/files/caresheets/P_vitticeps.htm (This is a good one written by a man who knows his bearded dragons. He was a breeder of them for many years and produced some prize winning animals. I ask him for advice all of the time, and he gladly gives it to me.)

http://www.beardeddragoncare.net/ (Apparently a whole website dedicated to bearded dragon care. I don't know if it is good info or not, but it is one that is out there.)

http://www.beardeddragon.org/articles/caresheet/

http://www.sundialreptile.com/care%20sheet--bearded%20dragon.htm (I goofed, I'll also recommend this one as it comes from a trusted source in my opinion.)

http://www.kingsnake.com/gladescs/bearded/

All the best,

GB