Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I don't believe this. A couple of weeks ago I got myself a new pair of ebenaui. Through some strange fluke the male escaped. I have never had a leaftail escape before. I tore the house apart but couldn't find him so I evertually chalked it up to bad luck. I replaced him last weekend at a show, and now the new one is missing. It wasn't the same tank, the lid is tight, there was another new ebenuai in with them which is still there. What is going on? How can they be escaping? Why didn't the female leave too? How can I find him? My house is totally wood inside. they would totally disappear.

Tanya

I dealt with this same dilemna about two weeks ago with my phants. The pair escaped (nay, walked out) of their vivarium that I forgot to close after the previous nights spraying. When I came in the next morning I noticed that the lid to their enclosure had been left open and the gex had hit the road. Panic set in, and only intensified b/c I had to get my son and I off to school, so I did my quick spraying of other cages and a brief scan of the room, but alas, no gex. When I returned home later that day I resumed my search. Thinking like a gecko I (escpecially ones that like to hide within the plants) I examined all the plants that I had throughout the room. I new I was hot on the trail when I found phant poo on the rim of one of the pots, and when I pulled down the plant sitting next to it I noticed the male on the glass directly behind the plant. My female was perched directly over the cricket tub, waiting to pounce, she's a porker. Both were fine and within six feet of their enclosure. It's probably a lost cause to find your original male, but if you think that the new male is still around I would start by searching the area closest to the enclosure and work your way out. Check all your houseplants, THOUROUGHLY, and maybe you could try and "bait" the little guy by placing a container of crix out. Good luck!

yea....first thing i do when i notice someone gets loose is turn the lights out as often as possible, keep all doors shut, and load as many houseplants into the room as possible. if everyone gets out (make sure of this first!!!), i would even recommend keeping the lid off the cage. keeping lights off will make them more active and hopefully you notice them while they're out. you really have to strip-search the entire room though. not too long ago, i had a male phant escape and i ended up finding him in a philodendron hanging plant on the opposite end of my room, all snuggly and curled up. i only noticed he was loose in the first place because i found poop on the OUTSIDE of one of my other cages, one he obviously crossed in his trek across the room. really only one other time can i remember one escaping, and i found her the same day on the back of a bookshelf.

check every little crack in the room, behind the blinds on windows (if you got em), and take the room apart piece by piece if you really wanna get em back. who knows, you might find em both in the end. but definitely try travelling in the direction from the tank to the poop you found.

These are good ideas. I don't have a single plant in the house which is not already in a tank, but I set up a bunch of moist hids which I will check again in the morning. My tanks are in my livingroom which has no doors keeping it from the rest of the house so conceivably they could be anywhere. I will just keep checking the hids and hope for the best. I still can't figure out how he got out. I saw him last night. Then just opened the screen a bit to put in some crix. He must have been on the top when I opened it.

Tanya

Having so many ebanaui I can spit this first hand...

If you have any kind of cork bark, bark or hiding spots that are tough to get a finger in or any crevice, check them out. Males tend to cram themselves into the most awkward and uncomfortable places. If you have chunks of cork bark or bark in general that are overlaping or stuck together or have crevices check there. They like to have their heads sticking out but their bodies covered. I've had one male lost for two days before I discovered him still in the tank and crammed in the middle of a piece of cork bark. Luckily he was able to crawl out of the spot. I learned real quick that day how tight of a place they will crawl into.

Jason

You simply need to be more careful and not "sloppy". I am checking them constantly during the day and night when I am home.

Before I set up an enclosure I make sure they can't escape. I have a lid on my young Henks enclosure that is too heavy for him to push off, I STILL LOCK IT out of habit.

Animals are smarter than you think. My snakes, KNOW when the lid is off, they know when they are going back in and do everything to get out when I initialy attempt to put them back in.

My Whites Tree Frogs were always very very clever at trying to escape.

Even my leaf tails are sometimes clever enough to catch me off guard with a flying leap up to me, though generally it's because they spot the crix in the ziplock bag.

You just need to be WAY more careful. These little guys don't grow on trees. =)
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