Barking Love

[HerpsOfNM]

I finally grew tired of pulling out a 50lbs tub of sand out of my snake rack earlier this week. The result was I recently (tonight) converted an old Oceanic Lizard Lounge Model 32 tank into a semi-naturalistic setup for my Ptenopus garrulus maculatus. My logic was one, tired of sliding a heavy tub, 2 I paid a pretty penny for these guys, I wan to see them, and 3, naturalistic cages rock.

I ran a fine grain sand layer about 4-5 inches deep (god I'm never going to see eggs!) and planted a concrete leaf living stone (Titanopsis calcarea) and an ox tongue (Gasteria glomerata). The plants remained in their pots and hopefully won't remain too moist given the sand needs to maintain a certain level of dampness to retain tunnel structures. Cue a good misting to get said dampness going, and about an hour later I thought I heard the awesome chirping of the male.

I was clearing out a few herp-related items (water bowls and some caging) from the guest bathroom as my sister-in-law just came into town, when I looked up at the cage and saw...

Something tells me they might be settling in nicely.

 

[neworleansvamp]

you could take that as a sign of being really at ease .....lmao

 

[hypnoctopus]

Cute little guys! I've never heard of that species.

 

[Shiari]

O_O They are adorable.

 

[Nanci]

So cool! What if you mixed a little clay in with the sand to help it hold tunnels? And what happens if you don't see eggs? Could you make one area more desirable for egg-laying than the rest, maybe even in a buried container, so you could keep the conditions there more optimal for eggs? Would the parents eat the hatchlings- (probably)?

 

[HerpsOfNM]

you could take that as a sign of being really at ease .....lmao

Just a tad...

Cute little guys! I've never heard of that species.

Ptenopus are really neat geckos. If I'd not been going nuts on corns ($@&! You Nanci and Roylance lol) I'd probably have snagged a pair of each other species.

O_O They are adorable.

Their barking is even cuter. My wife calls them special geckos due to how their heads look. I think they look like a terrestrial form of t-rex from Meet the Robinsons.

So cool! What if you mixed a little clay in with the sand to help it hold tunnels? And what happens if you don't see eggs? Could you make one area more desirable for egg-laying than the rest, maybe even in a buried container, so you could keep the conditions there more optimal for eggs? Would the parents eat the hatchlings- (probably)?

They're from predominantly fine grain sandy habitats. I'll have to find the email from my best friend that had field shots from his research plot in Namibia. That said, these guys are CB from Jon Boone. They naturally tunnel and utilize it for egg laying. Everyone that I know that keeps the species, in general, has them on 1.5-5 inches of sand and has to build sand castles to find eggs. I might look into a means of mixing clay in though, i like that idea. There are quite a few other S African geckos species I'd like to play with and most are small to tiny. Many of the Pachydactylus are awesome little guys.

 

[RobbiesCornField]

These are AWESOME!!!! And ridiculously adorable. The stumpy faces remind me of chondrodactylus angulifer (which I'm avidly trying to track down).

 

[diamondlil]

Possibly the cutest lizards ever!

 

[Kate]

"I have a big head, and little arms. I'm just not sure how well this plan was thought through."

SQUEEEEEEEE
<3 <3