Is anything exciting going on?

Ours are healthy, but they aren’t exciting.

I guess that’s a good thing though – too much excitement would probably mean something bad was going on.

Are you planning on getting, or researching any new reptiles lately?

Planning on going to any of the reptile shows?

Leave a comment and let me know what’s going on in your reptile world.

It turns out that the deformed frogs and toads aren’t caused by chemical contaminants after all, or at least they aren’t all caused by them.

Scientists have discovered that some species of dragonfly nymphs eat the limb buds off of tadpoles, which results in frogs with missing or deformed legs, if the tadpoles survive to adulthood.

A parasitic flatworm, Riberoria trematode, which burrows into tadpole’s hindquarters, rearranges the limb bud cells while it’s in there, and that can result in extra limbs.

Although this has been going on for years, I don’t remember reading anything saying that natural predators might be responsible for the deformities, all I’ve heard is that it was due to chemicals, so I think it’s really interesting that it is something natural that’s causing the problems.

What do you think about this?

Since they were laid on July 1, 2008, and they normally take 6-13 months to hatch we still have about another month and a half before things start to look abnormal.

Unfortunately some of the eggs have died, so it looks like we have about 7 of the original 13 left that are still viable.

You can read more about the eggs at 13 Nosy Be Panther Chameleon Eggs.

“My chameleon is a youngster and eats medium crickets.

Now I looked at him just a moment ago and the crickets have been eating just belowe the spikes on his spine.

Can someone help me please as i cannot figure out what to do.

My e-mail is ***deleted to prevent spam*** thanks and help is needed urgently.”

David, the easy answer is don’t leave crickets in the cage with your chameleon if he isn’t going to eat them very soon.

If there are extra crickets running around, there is always the chance that they will get bored and start crawling on or biting your chameleon.

We keep our crickets and other chameleon foods in separate tupperware containters.

Instead of gutloading the batch we are going to feed the next day, we gutload the entire container, and then we can just grab a few when we are ready to feed the chameleons.

Jeff feeds crickets and mealworms from a cricket feeder cup, and he justs dusts them before he feeds them.

He uses tongs to feed Sully roaches one by one (we really don’t want roaches loose in the house), and he takes a sprinkle of whichever mineral powder he is using that day, and dusts it over each roach before he feeds it.

This way we can see exactly how much each reptile eats, we can make sure they eat the supplements before they come off of the food items, and we can make sure that none of the food escapes from the reptile cages, or stays in the cage long enough to harass the reptiles.

When we do use crickets we will occasionally let one loose in Sully (the panther chameleon) or Tiger’s (the leopard gecko) cages so that they can hunt and get a little bit of exercise, but only when we can tell that they are still hungry, and will be pretty likely to hunt the cricket down before the reptiles go to sleep.

I have heard of people who use a bowl full of crickets wrapped in wire so the crickets can’t climb out of the bowl and eat the reptiles, but with that method you still can’t be sure that your pets are getting proper supplementation.

Your chameleon should also be seen by a vet to make sure the bite wounds below his spikes aren’t infected, and to see if he needs any medications to prevent are treat infections.

Good luck, and let me know how your chameleon is doing.

Thank you.

If you have a reptile question let me know about it! If I don’t know the answer I’ll do my best to find it.

You can see David’s original comment at What do you feed your crickets?

Here's Sully in his unlazy days.

Tiger, the leopard gecko, is doing ok, but Sully is getting lazier in his old age.

Since we started feeding him roaches, Jeff makes sure that the roaches don’t escape from Sully’s cage.

That means Jeff feeds Sully each roach with some wooden tongs, to make sure he eats each roach.

Now that Sully is more used to Jeff, he’ll wait for Jeff to get the roaches, and if he drops a roach, he’ll wait for Jeff to pick it back up with the tongs before he tries to eat it again.

Sully is so spoiled.

We’re planning on getting a shipment of crickets soon, so that Sully and Tiger can hunt for their food a little bit more, and so it will give them a little variety.