Reptile & Amphibian Forums

well, i dont want to start any controversy or anything, but what is the most expensive anyone has ever seen a leaf tail sell for recently? looking around, i found a female phantasticus for sale on the classifieds of another website, and she was going for $180!!!! is it just me, or does it seem like this person is taking advantage of the so-called shortage there has been lately? keep in mind this female is only about 6 months long-term captive. the most expensive i've seen any satanics sell for since i started looking for them more than a year ago was $100. am i the only one that thinks this is kind of ridiculous, or do i sound naive at the thought of buying not-so-common reptiles fresh caught, then selling them a few months later as "long-term" captives for 2 to 4 times their normal price? is LTC a term too easy to use? i would feel as though a year would be the necessity to qualify as long-term, so as to see the response of the animal throughout all seasons of the year. granted the life expectancy is around half a decade, but does anyone else see this as someone trying to cash in on lack of imports? this person does not even mention treating the gecko for parasites or anything! just mentions that females are hard to come by because importers are starting to hold back females. i really hope that this doesnt start happening more often, although the high prices are good to shun away less-serious keepers of reptiles.

Well in Europe they can cost up to 120.- Euros, that is approx. 155.- US Dollars

I think that the price will increase in the nearest future, because Uroplatus are listed at Cites II now.

I've seen guentheris sell for well over 500, granted, they're a rarer species...

yea, guentheri doesnt really apply here because there are so few in the trade. as for overseas prices, yea i didnt really take those into account. and yes, i would also understand possible price hikes due to placement on appendix II, but that is by far (VERY FAR) the priciest phantasticus i've seen for sale on US soil. the closest to that price that i've seen was a female pietschmanni that was in the classifieds a couple of months ago that went for something like $220. maybe its just me, but i can understand higher pricing of pietschmanni since they are indeed few and far between. with the phantasticus, i have realized in the past few months that its merely a matter of tracking them down. i dont know how many places i called and got the message that i just missed them. xtremereptiles recently had a shipment in around the end of last month where females were going for a mere $60 a piece. unfortunately i waited that out to hand-pick some females from the sc reptile show and found absolutely none, then found out that xtremereptiles had sold their last few by the time i left the reptile show. now i know im just blowing things out of proportion by saying this, but wouldnt it be wrong of me to snatch up a large group of phantasticus, keep them for 6 months, then sell them to other people for 3 or 4 times what i paid for them? oh capitalism!