Last month I talked about the monsters in my home, particularly my Chameleon Grump, and guess what? Yes, you’re right, I’m back again for part 2 (If you’ve missed it, you can find part 1 here.) Don’t worry, though this is part 2, it’s also the last of the monsters in my house so you won’t have to read another one, haha!
Grump isn’t the only reptile I have, there are a few others in the house as well. Around 7 years ago I got a bearded dragon from the local reptile shop. I had originally asked for a male dragon but as it turned out I ended up with a female dragon and here she is.
Midge the Beardie
My partner named her Midge, though to be honest I mostly call her dragon, though she is not the fire breathing kind of dragon! Bearded dragons, or “beardies,” are moderately sized lizards native to Australia. They range in colour but are often a light tan to brown with a long, thick tail and a spiky, beard-like collar around their neck. They typically prefer to stick to warm, arid areas, deserts, subtropical woodlands, savannah, and scrublands.
There are different types of bearded dragons and ones that have been selectively bred to create either a specific colour, appearance, pattern or combination of all three are called Morphs. Our dragon is an orange morph due to the orange colour of her scales. She lives in a four-foot-long vivarium with heat lights to replicate the heat of the Australian outback, which is around 38 – 42c. Like Grump, Midge is fed on a diet of live food, worms, locust and salad greens, veg, and she is very partial to dandelion flowers heads as well, which are like Mars bars to beardies!
At night her lights go off so the temperature in her vivarium reduces down to the same temperature as the Australian outback at night. During the day she comes out of the vivarium to have a run around the floor in the house. She likes being handled and is happy to sit and be petted like a dog.
Crested Gecko
I also have these two little guys, they are crested geckos and they are nocturnal, so we only see them out and about in their vivarium at night. My geckos were unwanted pets and I took them in when the previous owners’ daughter got fed up looking after them. They are meant to have tails, but unfortunately, my two lost their tails when their previous owner had them. Losing their tails isn’t a big deal for geckos, as in the wild, if their tails are caught by a predator, a gecko will drop its tail to escape.
Crested geckos were once thought to be extinct, but were “rediscovered” around 1994. They are a low-maintenance pet and but they don’t tolerate being handled at all. One of their distinctive features is their lack of eyelids, they keep their eyes moist by flicking their tongue over their eyes. Most geckos originally hail from New Caledonia, an island country off the coast of Australia. Like the rest of the reptiles, they eat small crickets, worms and a special gecko soft food.
Fire-Bellied Toads
Last but not least are my two little Fire Bellied Toads. The toads are around 4.1 cm in size and live in a terrarium with water ponds and soil. They like to bury themselves in the soil, then hop into their pond to clean the soil off. Captive fire-bellied toads can live from 3–10 years, we have had our two toads for around 9 years. These small toads have colourful red bellies, when threatened they flip themselves over to reveal their red underside to scare off predators.
They also require special lighting to keep them warm and at the right temperature. Fire-Bellied Toads eat crickets worm and small locusts.
We don’t handle these fellows either as we can leave a residue or oil from our skin onto the toads which can harm them. Anyway, all amphibians secrete toxins of some sort so it’s best to just leave them alone. Our toads both happen to be male. I feel a little sorry for them as come breeding season male Fire-Bellied Toads make an unusual, bark-like sound when ready to breed. We hear them barking most evenings, but little do they know it is in vain.
That’s it for this edition of Paula’s Game Ramblings with a twist, thank you for reading!
You must log in to post a comment.