I've had good luck with the mojave Chionactis occipitalis that I've collected here in California. Mine takes crickets readily. I gutload the crickets the same as I do for my insect eating lizards and dust them with rep-cal with D3 and herptivite. Mine prefers crickets smaller in girth than the width between his eyes. If feeding larger crickets, removing the hoppers helps make them more appealing.

I keep mine in a 5 gallon tank with a UTH on one side (not the bottom). There are about 3" of playsand, a cork bark slab and a shallow water dish. Mine spends most of his time underground, but I will see him pressed up against the UTH on occaision and sometimes if I feed him at dusk I get to see him run down his crickets. Although I've never seen him drink, I keep the water dish full and occaisionally overfill it a bit to dampen the substrate in that corner.

From what I've read, the Tuscon subspecies is in serious decline, and there have been petitions to list it.

My usual view:


or:


scared up for a picture:


-Alice

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