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Spinz posted:Oooooo
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May 23, 2021 22:41
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We think it's a Pacific golfer snake but I figured you guys would know better than just guessing based on looking at pictures on the internet
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May 23, 2021 23:52
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Found this cute lil guy on a sidewalk here in NOVA  . Spotted some cats playing with something when I got close and they scattered, found a long stick and moved him to some grass while the cats ran off. Looks like a brownsnake?
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May 27, 2021 02:00
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BIG DRYWALL MAN posted:Looks like a brownsnake? Yup!
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May 27, 2021 02:40
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Spinz posted:We think it's a Pacific golfer snake but I figured you guys would know better than just guessing based on looking at pictures on the internet In SoCal, I think that's a pretty fair guess. It's very clearly not a rattlesnake. From the image quality and angle I can't see if it has like a black 'choker' part of the pattern on the back end of the head. It could also be a night snake if it had one? I like using Californiaherps for IDs since I'm not great at it yet, but it's fantastic at showing several members of a species so you can see about the variety that it accounts for.
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May 27, 2021 17:15
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Thinking its time to upgrade my 8 year old male leopard gecko enclosure. Currently it is a 10 ga aquarium, with under substrate heating pad, repti carpet on top of paper towels, warm and cold hides (the cold probably needs to be larger now although he can fully crawl into it still), humid hide on warm side, full spectrum (non UV) daytime heat light on approx 10-12 hour timer. I just measured the basking area below the heat lamp at around 87. I am thinking of a 15-20 ga long tank, new light with higher wattage (to 50 from 25w), and already got a hammock to increase what can be done in the space. Should I be rethinking the under substrate heating pad and substrate itself? There are such a mix of opinions for what should be done. I do want a larger water dish that he can also fully crawl into but have not found one yet. Appreciate your thoughts!
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Jun 6, 2021 00:07
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The FAQ on r/leopardgecokos suggests that, enclosure size and debate over the use of reptile carpet aside (I rotate between two pieces to ensure full cleanings), I am doing well already. It did recommend to use a thermostat to keep the warm side floor at 90--I have not used a thermostat so I put a digital thermometer on it and found it, if it read correctly (and it was also taking heat from the lamp as well) well over that, shockingly. So I put extra layers of paper towel down over the heat pad and now have it closer to 90. Do any of you use a heat pad/thermostat combination? How does that get set up? e. I've already installed the hammock and he's found it and explored it thoroughly already. He seemed pretty interested in the new thing and remained pretty active all evening. Bilirubin fucked around with this message at 21:21 on Jun 6, 2021 |
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Jun 6, 2021 21:19
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So I started feeding my ball python a larger rat. He took it just fine but then he stopped coming out of his hot hide after he ate. The first day or two after he'd stick his head out at night, but for the past 4-5 days at least he hasn't come out at all. He's due for a shed and he's probably just happily digesting his larger meal but how long can he go without even coming out for water before I should start to worry?
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Jun 7, 2021 03:17
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Chaosfeather posted:In SoCal, I think that's a pretty fair guess. It's very clearly not a rattlesnake. Thank you. I will remember Californiaherps.
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Jun 7, 2021 23:50
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Don't post to Pet Island much, but that's not important. What is important is that you look at these gorgeous sea turtle eggs:  A Hawksbill Sea Turtle laid 180 eggs. Super impressive, but she did this in the middle of a local dispute: https://www.elnuevodia.com/ciencia-...laya-de-rincon/ To summarize for the tl;dr and the non-Spanish: Hurricane Maria destroyed a lot of things, including this beachside condo's pool. Owner wants to rebuild, but the local advocates are against it for environmental protection reasons. Turns out, the permit wasn't even for a pool, but landscaping and flora. And the tide is still lapping at the pool site, even without a hurricane. And another concern was nesting site conservation: shoreside pools are not the best thing to have near turtle eggs. Cue this beautiful specimen beaching herself, crawling into the sand pit for the pool, and absolutely destroying any arguments that it's not a turtle nesting area. Just thought you folks might like to know that someone's trying to do fine work helping majestic sea turtles.
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Jul 9, 2021 16:01
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Ooooh, nice haul. When's the breakfast buffet?  but seriously, good news for the cause of conservation! Go turtles!
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Jul 10, 2021 04:52
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Mistle posted:A Hawksbill Sea Turtle laid 180 eggs.  quote:Super impressive, but she did this in the middle of a local dispute
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Jul 12, 2021 12:16
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"This is my opinion on the matter, stupid apes"
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Jul 12, 2021 23:44
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Do sea turtles raid each other’s nest sites? Kenan Harkin had a YouTube vid up last week about his tortoises (don’t remember which type) eating each other’s eggs—in some cases just gobbling them up as the unwitting mother-to-be lays them while their own nest gets raided by somebody else There was healthy debate and speculation in the comments as to whether it was a behavior displayed in the wild, maybe with some competition-targeting selective pressure behind it, or whether it had emerged as a result of having all of these torts sharing a fenced-in enclosure
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Jul 13, 2021 00:25
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Ok Comboomer posted:Do sea turtles raid each other’s nest sites? Kenan Harkin had a YouTube vid up last week about his tortoises (don’t remember which type) eating each other’s eggs—in some cases just gobbling them up as the unwitting mother-to-be lays them while their own nest gets raided by somebody else What the gently caress? I have had leopard tortoises for about 30 years and had 3-4 females laying during various parts of the year and have never seen that.
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Jul 13, 2021 00:42
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Ok Comboomer posted:Do sea turtles raid each other’s nest sites? Kenan Harkin had a YouTube vid up last week about his tortoises (don’t remember which type) eating each other’s eggs—in some cases just gobbling them up as the unwitting mother-to-be lays them while their own nest gets raided by somebody else No. In sea turtles and some semi aquatic turtles (I've seen it in Bog turtles at a minimum) you'll see the opposite where several females will lay their eggs into a single nest site. I've never heard of wild turtles eating each others eggs. I'd hazard a guess that's a captivity related stress response.
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Jul 13, 2021 13:17
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ZarathustraFollower posted:No. In sea turtles and some semi aquatic turtles (I've seen it in Bog turtles at a minimum) you'll see the opposite where several females will lay their eggs into a single nest site. I've never heard of wild turtles eating each others eggs. I'd hazard a guess that's a captivity related stress response. I think calling it a stress response is a bit much, given that these enclosures are pretty massive outdoor paddocks, and it doesn’t appear to be a behavior in response to some trigger. Like it’s not self-harming nor an aggressive young-eating response. Like, not to generalize, but if I was looking for a stress response I’d imagine that the turtles would be eating their own eggs or laying them in a disorganized way/leaving nests unfinished or unbuilt, etc. I would definitely call it a proximity/population density issue. Possibly a behavioral adaptation to captivity (or, better, an emergent behavior). Eating eggs, in a general sense, isn’t a weird behavior for wild omnivorous torts but easily stumbling across multiple conspecific nest sites over the course of a chill afternoon definitely is. My hunch is that a wild one would do the same thing if it found a nest full of eggs that it didn’t recognize.
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Jul 13, 2021 14:29
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ZarathustraFollower posted:No. In sea turtles and some semi aquatic turtles (I've seen it in Bog turtles at a minimum) you'll see the opposite where several females will lay their eggs into a single nest site. I've never heard of wild turtles eating each others eggs. I'd hazard a guess that's a captivity related stress response. Right, their whole reproductive strategy is that a whole bunch of eggs hatch at once and the biggest possible swarm of hatchlings pull a Reverse Landing At Normandy and bolt for the sea, hoping that sheer numbers overwhelm any predators picking them off at their most vulnerable. Eating another turtle's clutch means there's that many fewer hatchlings to potentially distract predators from YOUR hatchlings.
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Jul 13, 2021 14:48
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Ok Comboomer posted:I think calling it a stress response is a bit much, given that these enclosures are pretty massive outdoor paddocks, and it doesn’t appear to be a behavior in response to some trigger. Like it’s not self-harming nor an aggressive young-eating response. Like, not to generalize, but if I was looking for a stress response I’d imagine that the turtles would be eating their own eggs or laying them in a disorganized way/leaving nests unfinished or unbuilt, etc. A wild turtle would not do that. I specifically mentioned examples where they form communal nests. In bog turtles, I can almost promise you those females never saw each other. I call it a potential stress response as a wildlife biologist finishing his PhD and has spent close to a decade working with reptiles. A stress response to captive conditions is a valid hypothesis, as are others I didn't mention such as a calcium deficiency. Stress in turtles is very understudied, and any abnormal behavior is a potential sign.
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Jul 13, 2021 17:34
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ZarathustraFollower posted:A wild turtle would not do that. I specifically mentioned examples where they form communal nests. In bog turtles, I can almost promise you those females never saw each other. I call it a potential stress response as a wildlife biologist finishing his PhD and has spent close to a decade working with reptiles. A stress response to captive conditions is a valid hypothesis, as are others I didn't mention such as a calcium deficiency. Stress in turtles is very understudied, and any abnormal behavior is a potential sign. do the bog turtles return to the same nesting site every season? were they born there? there are plenty of possible behavioral hypotheses for why turtles might refuse to scavenge eggs at communal sites but it doesn't mean that they don't eat eggs
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Jul 13, 2021 18:13
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Ok Comboomer posted:do the bog turtles return to the same nesting site every season? were they born there? there are plenty of possible behavioral hypotheses for why turtles might refuse to scavenge eggs at communal sites but it doesn't mean that they don't eat eggs No they dont ever return to their nest sites, unless by chance. The nest sites are seasonal and will vary with rainfall. Why are you focusing on this when I listed it as an example of other communal nest sites. Look - I said the egg eating behavior might be a stress response, and listed how its not seen in the wild, and now you want me to provide detailed life history info from one side example because you refuse to acknowledge that maybe, just maybe, turtles in captive, even with large enclosures, might show a stress response. This is why I generally avoid getting into discussions and mostly stopped posting in this thread years ago. Literally, my exact original words "I'd hazard a guess that's a captivity related stress response." I'm not making a definitive statement, just saying that's something to be considered. Hell, I pulled one of my herp textbooks off my shelf and checked. There's zero mention of shelled eggs in turtle diets in Vitt & Caldwell; just salamander and frog eggs.
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Jul 13, 2021 18:33
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Did anyone ever find out what kind of tortoises this allegedly happened with? Or the eggs laid actually in a hole or simply dropped on the ground?
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Jul 13, 2021 21:15
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I eat turtle eggs fight me
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Jul 14, 2021 01:04
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ZarathustraFollower posted:No they dont ever return to their nest sites, unless by chance. The nest sites are seasonal and will vary with rainfall. Why are you focusing on this when I listed it as an example of other communal nest sites. Nah, I just wanted to discuss it a bit more in depth and frankly I pushed back the tiniest bit because you dropped an authoritative tone like pretty much immediately, but stayed relatively low on actual support beyond "here's what we've seen a population of bog turtles do". Also you came out swinging as a subject expert so I legit wanted to see you back it up. I apologize if I came off like a dick, but you've folded super quickly here at some pretty boilerplate behavioral ecology questions. I too, am in grad school for bio. My intent was not to be hostile, or to stress you out, by bringing up other facets of the behavioral evidence that you used as support. My intent was to further the conversation. You brought up sea turtles as an example of a communal nesting site so I responded that several (most?) species of sea turtles remember/recognize at least the general area of their nest sites and return to them, ie "here's a thing to consider, what do you think?". Omnivorous turtles/torts of the sort that people keep tend to be fairly opportunistic foragers and predators, and feeding eggs of various types (unfertilized turtle eggs, boiled chicken eggs, etc) is a pretty standard practice in breeding/husbandry. I bring that up merely to point out that a lack of availability in a wild environment does not equal a lack of preference under otherwise normal (non-stressed) circumstances. Multiple species of turtles have been repeatedly observed eating shelled eggs under diverse captive conditions, it stands to reason that the lack of wild evidence doesn't necessarily equate to "eating eggs like smash mouth=aberrant or pathological behavior". Wild turtles generally aren't found with things like Mazuri pellets, dog food, red shrimp, or goldfish in their guts or feces, but that doesn't stop their captive counterparts (or even wild ones) from readily gobbling such things up if presented with them (I do not endorse feeding your pets unhealthy poo poo). I've seen wild turtles eat birds, on more than one occasion. I've seen them eat trash. I wouldn't consider either to be dietary staples, or necessarily good to eat, but I wouldn't go so far as to confidently call either example a stress behavior either. If 1/3 American pets is obese, does it stand to reason that a critical mass of them must be eating their feelings? There's a really interesting paper from like 2-3 years ago that I'm not about to go looking for regarding a population of omnivorous anoles in Florida that lived in the vicinity of a pizzeria. Individual lizards started showing these bizarre, massive, fatal blockages in their GI tracts. Turns out the anoles were foraging and hunting in the pizzeria's trash and ingesting fat and grease to such a degree that it was forming "fatbergs" inside their guts. Stressed female turtles in captivity can be seen eating their own eggs, which is why I brought up the difference between eating one's own eggs and raiding a neighbor's. Stressed female turtles have also been observed doing things like building incomplete nests or laying eggs on the ground, laying them in water (although the latter is usually attributed to a captive turtle being denied a suitable dig site), and so on. It's worth noting that these turtles in question appear to be breeding, they appear to be performing courtship and digging nests and laying fertile eggs that hatch, and they appear to have done so regularly for years. That's not to say that stressed turtles wouldn't or couldn't do that, or that the situation isn't being misrepresented or lied about. Lots of financially solvent animal breeding operations are abusive/neglectful/etc. You're absolutely right that it could be a stress response. It could also not be a stress response. That's all I've said. There's a lot of variables to account for, and it's worth discussing because it's an animal husbandry issue involving a pretty visible media figure in the hobby, who also sells the animals that he produces. Don't act like I'm being unreasonable or weird or "fixated" or whatever when I'm participating in a discussion about keeping reptiles in captivity, which is what this thread in Pet Island is all about. A lot of us here keep turtles and torts, including me. Some of us have turtles that lay eggs, or might lay them in the future, or might get pregnant, etc. and that's an incredibly understudied and misunderstood facet of keeping them alive and healthy for a long time. Anyway, TLDR: please don't poo poo down my throat because I bring up that there's a distinction between a behavior that emerges in captivity and a stress response. Also please don't take this as some stan defense of Kenan, or his breeding op, or whatever. I think he's done and said a lot of dumb poo poo on his channel, and he promotes/platforms/rolls with a crowd whose politics and advocacy I don't particularly like.
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Jul 16, 2021 02:58
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Do we even know what loving animals he had at this point that did this? Because I really want to know. After a wild few days dealing with an infected cat bite on my hand, it made me realize I've been bitten by several snakes and lizards, turtles, tortoises to a lesser degree. And never ever had the kind of stress as from this feline bite, from a cat that has never been outside, and has slept with me almost every night for years. Is it just because my reptile bites haven't been from larger lizards or snakes? Tegu as opposed to bearded dragon, etc.
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Jul 16, 2021 04:59
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Cowslips Warren posted:Do we even know what loving animals he had at this point that did this? Because I really want to know. I can't find the video anymore, I think he took it down. Kenan, are you a goon? Show yourself. Edit: I'm 90% certain it was either cherry heads or elongateds trilobite terror fucked around with this message at 05:20 on Jul 16, 2021 |
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Jul 16, 2021 05:17
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Ok Comboomer posted:Nah, I just wanted to discuss it a bit more in depth and frankly I pushed back the tiniest bit because you dropped an authoritative tone like pretty much immediately, but stayed relatively low on actual support beyond "here's what we've seen a population of bog turtles do". Also you came out swinging as a subject expert so I legit wanted to see you back it up. So, I "folded super quickly" because it came across that you were doing the same thing the alt-right and anti-evolution folks do where they give a bunch of questions with no reason why and want them all answered under the whole "I'm just asking questions" bs. Had you just said something like "Hey, I'm not familiar with bog turtle ecology, what sort of nesting do they normally do?" I would have given a bit of info and linked these two papers that go into detail, including the main predators (it's foxes and racoons): https://meridian.allenpress.com/journal-of-herpetology/article-abstract/52/2/228/197727/Microgeographic-Variation-in-Bog-Turtle-Nesting https://meridian.allenpress.com/ccb/article-abstract/16/2/194/132307/Hatching-Success-and-Predation-of-Bog-Turtle The way you phrased things came off as a giant red flag I've learned to avoid. The reason I "dropped an authoritative tone" was because your first comment didn't acknowledge it could have been a stress response as all, and came across as both dismissive and a defense of Kenan. I'd also argue that a behavior arising from density in captivity would be a stress response, but that's a different conversation. You also brought up sea turtles first, not me. I used bog turtles solely because they are one I'm much more familiar with the nesting ecology of, and would be somewhat more similar to a fully terrestrial species (my MS was on a species that would be a better example, but I wasn't looking at nesting at all so I avoided bringing it up). At no point did I say it *had* to be a stress response, but something to consider. It felt like you refused to acknowledge this, and to be a bit blunt, one of the reasons I generally don't talk about captive species is that I've had a lot of bad experiences with herp enthusiasts ignoring evidence of bad husbandry. For example, by most peoples standards I underfeed my 2 pines snakes. They eat once a month, sometimes once every 2 months. I've raised them from shortly after hatching and they are now in their early teens and going strong. I do that because I feel the vast majority of captive snakes are overweight to obese, and that does bring health risks.
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Jul 16, 2021 13:30
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This is why I love SA. Two people can get mad about turtles and both be civil and cite references.
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Jul 16, 2021 18:05
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Cowslips Warren posted:Do we even know what loving animals he had at this point that did this? Because I really want to know. Part of the reason is that cat bites in general are actually pretty loving bad are because of how deep they puncture and how fast they'll heal up. If you don't wash them thoughly pretty quickly then the bacteria they have in general will give you lots of problems. Doesn't matter where the cat lives so much when the wound type allows for any impurity to be stuck deep in you. I don't want to derail too much, but any puncture wound that has a small diameter opening that can heal faster than the deep puncture itself is bad news.
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Jul 17, 2021 23:46
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PathAsc posted:Part of the reason is that cat bites in general are actually pretty loving bad are because of how deep they puncture and how fast they'll heal up. If you don't wash them thoughly pretty quickly then the bacteria they have in general will give you lots of problems. Doesn't matter where the cat lives so much when the wound type allows for any impurity to be stuck deep in you. I don't want to derail too much, but any puncture wound that has a small diameter opening that can heal faster than the deep puncture itself is bad news. cat bites are a lot like monitor bites in that their mouths are full of nasty carnivore mouth germs and their sharp little dagger teeth are like syringes made to bury those germs deep in your flesh At least they’re not like monitor bites in that cats aren’t built to rip and tear said flesh with a death roll
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Jul 18, 2021 00:43
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Ok Comboomer posted:cat bites are a lot like monitor bites in that their mouths are full of nasty carnivore mouth germs and their sharp little dagger teeth are like syringes made to bury those germs deep in your flesh A friend of mine picked up the wrong Red Ackie monitor (the male is friendly, the female... not so much) and got nailed between the thumb and pointer finger. So much blood. She said they have an anti-coagulant in their saliva and while I haven't looked that up to confirm, there was just so so much blood. And those are pretty small monitors.
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Jul 18, 2021 00:54
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Ok Comboomer posted:cat bites are a lot like monitor bites in that their mouths are full of nasty carnivore mouth germs and their sharp little dagger teeth are like syringes made to bury those germs deep in your flesh Yeah, small miracle that!
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Jul 18, 2021 00:54
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The one time someone other than me feeds the spicy girl, and -- she has no remorse look how smug
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Jul 19, 2021 23:50
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My dog found a closed turtle shell in our yard. No idea how it got here, we don't have a turtle and it's a ways away to the park. The shell is closed tight. Do we just leave it alone? I don't want the dogs to bother it.
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Aug 19, 2021 13:45
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Whatever happened to said turtle there? Dumb question, but after dealing with fish for so long (less guppies and more cichlids and plecos, where they actively ignore or attack mates they don't like), can ball pythons just not like certain mates and refuse to breed? I have tried for two years with my lucy male and a lesser female, and she did have eggs once, but laid them right over the heat pad, so they were cooked. No idea if they were fertile or not. I've introduced and reintroduced them several times and nothing has ever happened save that once. Is she not into him or maybe he's not into her? edit: I mean even as I think about this, our leopard tortoise pair, our first one ever, neither bred with any other tortoise until very recently. As in the past year or two, compared to almost 30 years of "nope not banging anyone else." We had other males and females, but these two refused them all until I saw Chip finally with another girl. Maybe his lady Jamocha finally told him she'd open the relationship if he'd stop flipping her on her side. Cowslips Warren fucked around with this message at 13:58 on Aug 22, 2021 |
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Aug 22, 2021 01:08
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Cowslips Warren posted:Whatever happened to said turtle there? The turtle wandered around the yard and then left. It comes and goes. Guess we have a new turtle friend who will come and visit.  We have no idea why it is hanging out. But the dogs ignore it and we'll keep watching and let it go on it's merry way.
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Aug 22, 2021 05:21
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Fezz posted:We have no idea why it is hanging out. Because it lives there. Torts can be somewhat territorial/stick to areas where they can get food/water/shelter. They’re not exactly wide-ranging individuals. Maybe y’all can make it a little hide to take shelter in and toss it a couple snacks (cactus pads are an A+) and/or some water on occasion if you want it to stick around
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Aug 22, 2021 05:27
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Figure out what species it is and what it eats and leave it appropriate offerings in a small shrine you set up for it. This will please the God of turtles and you will receive their blessing.
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Aug 22, 2021 05:36
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Strawberries/chopped melons/canned cat food/cooked eggs and chicken are all acceptable offerings.
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Aug 22, 2021 13:56
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Ok Comboomer posted:Because it lives there. Torts can be somewhat territorial/stick to areas where they can get food/water/shelter. They’re not exactly wide-ranging individuals. We've lived here for five years and we've never seen it before this week. We do have little cat house for the neighborhood strays, one more smaller turtle house will be a nice backyard addition.
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Aug 22, 2021 14:30
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