Hi all,
I just adopted a 1 year old female leopard from a research project on tail regeneration. She is high yellow and lavender, which reminds us of the Lakers, and since she is so fat we decided to name her "Shaq".
Anyway, Shaq has spent much of the past few months in an environmental chamber in a plastic tub, and after an exciting walk to my car and drive home (she would impatiently crane her neck over my hand to look at her surroundings were I so rude as to put it into her line of sight!), she spent several hours stomping around her new 10 ga. tank with undertank heater (an extra small desert from Exo Terra), a humidity hide, a small Exo Terra maze hide (with the magnets), water dish, etc. She finally climbed into her humidity hide and slept until dark, at which point she started stomping around. The next day she found the maze hide, and then has pretty much not left it since.
Since it has been 3 days since she last ate I put in 3 superworms for her, and coaxed her out of her hide. She immediately ate one, then sat on the heat for a few minutes, lunged at another worm (which fell back into the dish), then she went back into her hide and back asleep.
So, is this normal behaviour for a gecko in a new enclosure? Is she entering into a state of dormancy?
Thanks for your replies. I have somewhat more experience with other geckos, but this is my first leopard and I am not sure of normal behaviour.
