Reptile & Amphibian Forums

do they eat a wider amount of flowers and leaves than u.s species that mainly eat creosote which makes up the bulk of thier diet and a few other plants from time to time.as far as i know creosote doesnt grow on islands.also,tom what regulations apply to owning them besides having to pay allot of money to have them do u have to deal with a bunch of rules, like the ones that apply to cycluras? oh and what is an average humidity on their native islands.they probably tolerate higher humidities than western chucks im guessing.
Thanks, Josh

First of all on the food. They have found a total of 22 different plant species in S. varius. I think it is something like 26 in hispidus. But I guess I will stick with varius here. They do eat flowers but only in the short season that they occur and in most years they do not occur. The diet is mostly made up of Ironwood leaves, buds and flowers in the spring and early summer. In the fall of the year the diet consist mostly of grasses and in the summer mostly cactus fruits. The ironwood is the most nutritious-alot of calcium. The cactus fruits are mostly water- very low in nutrients and the grasses are somewhat in between. So yes the diet does differ from that of mainland chucks.
There are no regulations pertaining to hispidus other than they are illegal to bring into the states from Mexico. Most of the ones here are probably prodigy of illegal animals but that does not seem to concern the feds they really try to enforce not bringing them in but once they are here there are no regs. Varius are cities appendix one endangered species. All that applies to most of the cyclura apply to varius. The humidity is low during the warmest parts of the day. I believe the nights are more humid and I have heard that even a blanket of fog covers the island in the early morning but not sure. I have talked with Dr Jarchow on the subject and he says the burrows are very humid. All the healthiest animals have the most sheltered burrows and the humidity can be as hight as 70% in the best burrows. Tom

man u know a heck of allot about chucks. how many years have you been working with them? thanks again for answering my questions, i always love to learn knew stuff about them.

I have kept chucks in the past for many years and got out of them for awhile then started back up about 15 years ago and have been doing it since. I wish BJ, Brian Jones was still active on the list. I think he has kept them longer and has actually bred hispidus indoors. The island chucks seem to breed pretty easy when kept in outdoor terraria in AZ but seem almost impossible in indoor terrariums. Hey man and your not so bad yourself shooting off those cteno ID's on the cyclura forum. I think you IDed them all correctly. A lot of them look the same to me. Tom

When are you going to write that book???

I'm still waiting you know. I go through information withdrawl occassionaly! There simply isn't enough info on the web about them nor in any printed material available either. I'm tired of reading things from the 1940s and 1970s. You and Richard really need to get to work on this.

time on the lizards Angela my wife would probably divorce me. She encourages me to write a book but I really don't think I have the no how to put it together. I am sure if Richard helped it would be easier but he has a ton of stuff going on. He is retired from teaching now but has horned lizard research to put togther and publish. Also he is very active in herp conservation in South Carolina always giving talks, attending meetings, writing articles etc. He is also going to publish a paper on chucks but that is down the road still. Nothing on husbandry though. Did I ever give you his husbandry article from the CHS bulletin? Tom

with pictures and husbandry and what not, i always thought that would be neat to see.
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re-edited
1.1 Western redback chuckwallas(philbert & unnamed)
5 green sunfish
Striped raphale catfish
Common Plecaustomouse
3 coyfish
0.1.1-sandiego gopher snakes
1.3-coturnix quail
0.1-cockatiel( R.I.P)ironic she was named casper...
1.1(fixed) cats-eddie/buzz
Where the heck would a cali. kingsnake run off to?!?!?!

Yes you did give me copy of his article. I read it very quickly and digested it entirely. So get those notes together and I'll edit it for you!

That way I get a sneak peek and satisfy my thirst for knowledge. Sorry Eve you'll have to be the second editor after me!!!! I've got first dibs on this!!!!!!!!!