I want to find lizards (geckos, beardies, etc) or other reptiles that are naturally fat little weirdos WHEN HEALTHY... I know anything can be a fat little weirdo but I want to see ones that are NATURALLY like that... For example, in bug world, Grubs are fat little freaks. Does anyone have any suggestions?

3 year old Cuban/cayman rock iguana

She loves watching the city traffic from our second story window. She will follow cars and people going by to make sure they’re not coming too close.

Xenagama batilliifera sensu lato (Xenagama wilmsi). Bigger cousin to shield tail agamas and the only thing I've ever considered getting a tattoo of.

Hey everyone, I’m just trying to properly setup and get ready for a chameleon, preferably a panther chameleon. The enclosure is 2’ x 2’ x 4’ and all the plants inside I checked before buying and they’re safe, and I will be putting more plants inside in the near future possibly after I get the chameleon though. I sourced the branches from an outdoor willow tree. I have 3 lights, an Arcadia jungle dawn led bar for plant growth, a light dome paired with a 75 watt exo terra intense basking spot bulb that gets around 29-30C at the basking branch, a reptizoo linear uvb light fixture paired with an exo terra 7% linear uvb bulb that’s around 10 inches away from the basking branch including 1 inch of clearance above the mesh roof. I’m looking to block the right side of the enclosure with some sort of plastic to hold some more humidity. If anyone has any input on the setup let me know, I wanna make sure my chameleon won’t have any health or comfortability problems, thanks!

Hello everyone! I’m dealing with quite the odd situation right now and I’d love other opinions. Before I get into it there is a bit of context you need to know about me, and the situation.

- I am a literal herpetologist (gone through schooling) who’s been working with various exotics (reptiles, fish, amphibians, and some arachnids) for over 10 years.
- I own and run an educational exhibit, we have dozens of types of fish, over 100 species of reptiles, and a handful of amphibians and arachnids. We have a dedicated QT room with protocols so we don’t often deal with issues in our main collection. This place is also a rescue, meaning new animals frequently are surrendered (it’s run similarly - but not identically - to snake discovery).
- I’ve dealt with mites many times over the years and generally know the to-do; isolate in a tote with white paper, treat until mites are gone and continue treatment for 3 weeks after the last sighting. We have volunteers and typically when mites show up we send the affected animal to a volunteers house (who don’t have other reptiles) and they don’t come into the facility until it’s done.
- Everytime an animal comes out (which every one comes out at least 2-3 times weekly), we check them over for mites (and other issues, listen for respiratory issues for example).
- Our typical treatment is ivermectin, dosage varies by species and size but it’s always worked before for us.

With that out of the way, here’s The current situation

Rose, a roughly 7 year old BCI, was patient zero. Rose is a longstanding resident of our exhibit who’s out in the middle of the exhibit surrounded by other reptiles. She was examined 10/13 and no mites were found, on 10/15 during a routine handling we noticed them. She was immediately taken to our QT space, volunteers weren’t free to take her until 10/22, so unfortunately she had to stay onsite for about a week. Our leading theory on where the mites came from was the substrate, hers had recently (the last two weeks) been replaced (we do typically freeze it, but the replacement was done by a volunteer who forgot to used the freeze substrate).

Being that rose is a part of a wall of enclosures we spent the next few days stripping down and inspecting every enclosure in the wall, we found one singular mite on the snake directly next to her, but outside of that nothing. Regardless we have stripped and treated all other enclosures and done preventative treatment on the animals inside them. To date no one else is displaying anything. To date We also haven’t seen mites show up on any of the other animals in the QT room she had to be moved to temporarily.

Rose herself however, that’s a different story. The first few days we were seeing 40-60 mites every day (mostly dead on the paper, we’d see maybe one or two alive). Most of them were tiny, definitely not adult mites (looking like they recently hatched), which leads me to believe they likely hatched out in the substrate and swarmed her. She has now been with volunteers since 10/15, receiving ivermectin treatments every other day and soaks daily (soaks would happen before spray treatment). Her entire bin is also sprayed and treated daily. The odd thing is that well over a dozen mites are still showing up every day. All of them dead, volunteers say they haven’t seen any actually alive (last live crawling mite was seen 10/19). Now rose is a fairly big girl (roughly 7’) and it’s hard to check under every scale.

My question is this: At this point, would you switch to a different treatment assuming the mites are resistant to ivermectin (and if so, what treatment) OR would you assume there were just way more mites that hatched out than we thought and it’s just taking time for them to come off of her. Any other theories, thoughts, or ideas are also welcome.

And to clarify one more detail, to this day we have not seen a single mite on any other animal (other than that singular one found on her neighbor the day after who got treatment the same as her). We have been treating them regardless, and look them over daily, but I don’t believe the mites have been around longer than I think as if they were I would expect to find them on other animals as well.

Attached are photos of the mites under a microscope, and Rosey, the boa that’s dealing with them.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxUzn1mVJOA (Our World - Extraordinary Animals)

My middle-schooler finally got what he’s been wanting for over a year, after tons of research and preparing, a ~3yo who grew back his tail! What do you think of his digs?

I want to start keeping reptiles, and I want to start sa leopard gecko. May I know if what legal processes should I follow first before/after buying one? Also, are there any websites where I can buy lower price geckos(my budget isn't that high)?

Bro said if I sit here long enough I'll get fed

I spend a few hours building a nice humid hide and buy big bouge ones for The big lady..... just for her favorite spots to be under the water bowl and the cork flat the isopods colony *WAS* liveing under XD. Shes sense evicted all the isopods and there now liveing amongst the Ponthos haha.

Hi folks,

I'm moving abroad and can't take my reptile with me nor do I have any one to leave it with. Im trying to find somewhere to donate it to soon. Any idea where I can do this in NYC/NJ?

Hey all!

This is Janet, my green anole. She's an absolute sweetheart, super friendly and seems to enjoy my finger as a first course!

She recently lost her man, Kevin and since his passing, she's been gaining weight fast. I do put less mealworms in her feeding dish now she's alone without a big boy to eat most of it but is she looking on the curvaceous side?

Thank you! (Bonus pic of her with her late Husband, Kevin.)

Today my girlfriend was helping me clean the enclosures of my two 8-year-old female leopard geckos. In an attempt to disinfect the bottoms of the enclosures, she sprayed Lysol disinfectant spray onto the glass and let it dry as the instructions say to do in order to kill bacteria. This didn't sit right with me, so I did some Googling and sure enough Lysol contains phenols, which are highly toxic to reptiles. Additionally, the enclosures were sprayed inside the reptile room so my other animals (other geckos, ball python, invertebrates) could have been exposed to the fumes, though nothing but the bottoms of the enclosures had contact with the liquid.

I rinsed out both tanks very thoroughly with water in the bathtub (phenols are luckily water soluble) and luckily none of the enclosure furnishings came into contact with the spray. Neither of us can detect any odor of the spray from the enclosures. I replaced the substrate and have moved the geckos back into their enclosures, as I have no suitable alternatives to house them on hand. They should not have come into contact with any surface that had been sprayed with the substrate in place, but I cannot rule out that some of it got onto the enclosure sides (though I did rinse the entirety of the insides with water, so hopefully there wouldn't be any phenol residues left over but I can't really guarantee this either).

I'm going to weigh each gecko daily and check up on them several times each day to assess their health. Right now they both seem perfectly normal, but I know that illness can take time to set in and that reptiles mask signs of illness. My question is, do I need to do anything else? I will contact my vet tomorrow when the office opens. From my initial web search it doesn't seem like this is necessarily a scenario to seek immediate emergency medical care, but I want to be proactive. I'm hoping to get a read on just how worried I should be or just how closely I should monitor them and for how long.

I will also be monitoring the other animals present in the room, though I am less worried about them as nothing in their environment came into contact with the spray. I found some other reports of people using Lysol in the same room as a reptile and each time the animal had been perfectly fine, though obviously not something you want to replicate. Finally, I intend to be out of town from Friday morning through Sunday evening, and I'd like to figure out if I'd be "in the clear" by then or if I should cancel my trip to monitor my animals. I appreciate any guidance you can give.

Photographed these guys on vacation in Rhodes, I thought you might want to see them here (photos taken on two sepearte days in different locations, oldtown walls and walls surrounding Rhodes Acropolis).

I’ve only had my leopard gecko 5 days (he was 11 months old when I bought him) and he has stayed in his hot hide and I haven’t seen him leave. Do I wait a while until he is used to his new enclosure and probable less stressed out or do I do something else. I have taken the hot hide out do I can feed him but he just hides somewhere else and avoids the food I try to feed him with tongs.

Hi all! I have an empty 4x2x2 and I’d like something bigger for it. Lizards only, no snakes. Something with lots of personality that I can let free roam for a bit with supervision. So far I’m leaning towards a blue tongue but I’m open!

Edit: I do not like beardies and I already have a Schneider’s skink. Also this is a permanent enclosure seeing as I don’t have space for anything larger

I recently just got a bearded dragon and I want to learn how I can start to bond with him. I waited a week to not touch him because that’s what I researched but now I don’t really know what to do. I started putting my hand in his terrarium then after time got closer and closer to him. but right now I’m at a point where he’ll let me pet him with my finger. but I’ve tried picking him up and he kinda just freaks out. I’m making sure I pick him up from the front in order to not damage his ribs and I’m supporting his tail but he freaks out and wants to get out of my hands after 2-3 seconds. I really want to give him the perfect care and I feel bad that he’s always in his terrarium it’s a (75 gallon so it’s not small but I want him to be able to do different things) but I also don’t want to stress him out. Can you guys give me advice?

I’m a fairly new reptile keeper, less than 12 months.
QLD record book is one of the most clunky and confusing things to navigate.

I tried to register my python months ago and had nothing but issues. Parked it - then life got in the way.
I’ve now registered my python but stressing about fines or having my license taken away.

Has anyone else done something similar ?

Yes I know I fucked up.