the official reptile thread

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GeneralFriendliness said:
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never seen a turtle like that before
and here's one of my favorite skits from jackass 2

The tape on their arms was supposed to protect their wrists and the snake handler said after the skit that one of the anacondas took someone's calf muscles off presumably because they instinctively tried to pull away.
Constrictors such as boas and pythons are aglyphous which means their teeth lack grooves. But since they don't need venom and constrict, their teeth are virtually similar in size and always similar in shape and pointed towards the esophagus to ensure they can grip onto their prey. This is an anaconda skull which shows how the teeth are oriented, if bitten by any constrictor, move the bitten part of the body towards the esophagus so the teeth are out of the wound.

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King Kong... with wings? said:
never seen a turtle like that before
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The Mata Mata is a pretty amazing turtle with a face made of pure sage magic and a shell of +10 badassery.

How could you not love this face?
2d6.png


Edgy done right.
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God's most perfect turtle.
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Anyway, its South American and lives in the Amazon. Its not even endangered yet not many know it exists despite having been discovered centuries ago.
 
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GeneralFriendliness said:
The Mata Mata is a pretty amazing turtle with a face made of pure sage magic and a shell of +10 badassery.

How could you not love this face?
2d6.png


Edgy done right.
30592671_165991080707223_5868326537941483520_n.jpg


God's most perfect turtle.
tumblr_inline_pcal9eMDY01u2k8jd_540.png


Anyway, its South American and lives in the Amazon. Its not even endangered yet not many know it exists despite having been discovered centuries ago.
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I agree, that's a face that makes me smile, it is very unique with how it looks and that is quite surprising how little most know about it despite how long ago it was discovered and how different it looks compared to other turtles
 
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Jizz-ard

the youtube description is: Check out the Golden-tailed Gecko's (Strophurus taenicauda) Threat display in slow motion. When under attack this Gecko has an incredible way of deterring predators. They open their mouths to show a blacky blue lining as a warning to stay back, just as the black mamba does. As you can see the beautiful golden tail is lifted like a scorpion and is able to squirt out a foul smelling and sticky liquid if the predator comes any closer making this one of the coolest geckos on the planet!
 
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I caught a house gecko (about 1 inch length from head to tail) a few weeks ago and have been keeping it as a pet. I feed it with fruit flies and mosquitoes that get zapped by my electric bug traps. I have been laying out water for it, though it doesn't ever seem to require a drink. Anything else I should be doing to keep it alive and healthy?
 
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millais said:
I caught a house gecko (about 1 inch length from head to tail) a few weeks ago and have been keeping it as a pet. I feed it with fruit flies and mosquitoes that get zapped by my electric bug traps. I have been laying out water for it, though it doesn't ever seem to require a drink. Anything else I should be doing to keep it alive and healthy?
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Geckos normally need to be misted in captivity because they are dumbdumbs who can't understand the water bowl and normally drink the little droplets that collect on the decorations in their tank. So long as it has decent enough humidity and is misted it should be fine.

If you are keeping it in something I would encourage you to let it be free back in the wild, but that's because I believe if it's a wild animal it should stay one. If you don't want to let it go I understand, they need lighting so if it is just roaming around the house i would put get it a viviarium (they need a tall cage rather than long), good substrate to keep the moisture in, as well as some things to climb on. Idk where you live but it's going to start getting chilly soon so I wouldn't let him just roam around for too long just in case.

On the bug part, feeding dead/wild isn't a good idea. You're technically supposed to be feeding gut loaded insects to captive lizards, "Gut loading is the process by which an animal's prey is raised and fed nutritious foods with the intention of passing those nutrients to the animal for which the prey is intended", since it is wild a wild insect wouldn't hurt but I would skip the dead mosquitos asap, either wayfeeding wild can give it some nasty parasites. Online it says house geckos likes crickets, mealworms, waxworms, silkworms and roaches. You can get the first three at pretty much any pet store but silkworms and roaches are harder to find. For geckos I'd suggest the wax worms since mealworms shells tend to be a bit hard on digestion. You also have to keep his bones strong by sprinkling his feeders with calcium powder. The rule of thumb is to look at the space between the eyes which can be used to determine the largest size it can handle as far as feeders are concerned.

Hope that helps lol, I didn't really know how you were keeping it so I tried to include everything I could think of.

Edit: should you return it to the wild do it where ever you caught him, if not you'd only need to do the calcium things three times a week at most. If you want more advice pm me and I can give you any info you need. I only have a crested and a beardie though, so any house gecko info will be found online.
 
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Ido said:
Geckos normally need to be misted in captivity because they are dumbdumbs who can't understand the water bowl and normally drink the little droplets that collect on the decorations in their tank. So long as it has decent enough humidity and is misted it should be fine.

If you are keeping it in something I would encourage you to let it be free back in the wild, but that's because I believe if it's a wild animal it should stay one. If you don't want to let it go I understand, they need lighting so if it is just roaming around the house i would put get it a viviarium (they need a tall cage rather than long), good substrate to keep the moisture in, as well as some things to climb on. Idk where you live but it's going to start getting chilly soon so I wouldn't let him just roam around for too long just in case.

On the bug part, feeding dead/wild isn't a good idea. You're technically supposed to be feeding gut loaded insects to captive lizards, "Gut loading is the process by which an animal's prey is raised and fed nutritious foods with the intention of passing those nutrients to the animal for which the prey is intended", since it is wild a wild insect wouldn't hurt but I would skip the dead mosquitos asap, either wayfeeding wild can give it some nasty parasites. Online it says house geckos likes crickets, mealworms, waxworms, silkworms and roaches. You can get the first three at pretty much any pet store but silkworms and roaches are harder to find. For geckos I'd suggest the wax worms since mealworms shells tend to be a bit hard on digestion. You also have to keep his bones strong by sprinkling his feeders with calcium powder. The rule of thumb is to look at the space between the eyes which can be used to determine the largest size it can handle as far as feeders are concerned.

Hope that helps lol, I didn't really know how you were keeping it so I tried to include everything I could think of.

Edit: should you return it to the wild do it where ever you caught him, if not you'd only need to do the calcium things three times a week at most. If you want more advice pm me and I can give you any info you need. I only have a crested and a beardie though, so any house gecko info will be found online.
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That's a very helpful collection of info.

Where I live, house geckos are infesting almost every dwelling no matter how well sealed or constructed to the point that they would be considered a pest if they didn't help keep the bug population down, but usually they are too fast and slippery for me to catch. Just this time I was lucky and felt like trying to keep it as a pet.

I figured as much regarding the water. I have been keeping my homemade gecko enclosure moist and with sufficient ambient humidity via a wet substrate of paper towels that I am changing out every day. I'm still working on getting together some stuff for it to climb on. It did seem to enjoy climbing to the top of the paper towel "boulders" I had been temporarily using for a more varied terrain. It gets plenty of light, but I will have to start getting together a taller enclosure too, it seems. I think I can borrow an old fish tank, which should be more than sufficient for this purpose.

I had not yet gotten around to getting storebought lizard food, since my electric bug traps provide such a large volume of freshly killed insects. Usually the gecko is preferring to eat mosquito/ant/fruit-fly sized insects. Anything bigger seems to be too large for it to get its jaws around, since it is such a small gecko. I will have to look into this calcium powder too, I did not know of that.
 
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millais said:
That's a very helpful collection of info.

Where I live, house geckos are infesting almost every dwelling no matter how well sealed or constructed to the point that they would be considered a pest if they didn't help keep the bug population down, but usually they are too fast and slippery for me to catch. Just this time I was lucky and felt like trying to keep it as a pet.

I figured as much regarding the water. I have been keeping my homemade gecko enclosure moist and with sufficient ambient humidity via a wet substrate of paper towels that I am changing out every day. I'm still working on getting together some stuff for it to climb on. It did seem to enjoy climbing to the top of the paper towel "boulders" I had been temporarily using for a more varied terrain. It gets plenty of light, but I will have to start getting together a taller enclosure too, it seems. I think I can borrow an old fish tank, which should be more than sufficient for this purpose.

I had not yet gotten around to getting storebought lizard food, since my electric bug traps provide such a large volume of freshly killed insects. Usually the gecko is preferring to eat mosquito/ant/fruit-fly sized insects. Anything bigger seems to be too large for it to get its jaws around, since it is such a small gecko. I will have to look into this calcium powder too, I did not know of that.
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Some stores also sell fruit flies for the smaller insects. I suppose what you're feeding him should be fine for now but once he gets big enough I would definitely switch him over.

Fish tanks tend to be used for width rather than height but you could probably make due with it until he gets bigger. A 10 gallon with an exo-terra screen cover should be fine for the moment and enough to fit at least a small light on. If you are keeping him well lit, or in a room where you'll be sleeping and don't want to deal with a light there are ceramic heating bulbs that are heat only bulbs. Let me tell you how trippy it is to see your gecko's shadow magnified by four crawling up the wall at 2 am.
 
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