Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I put this female in the acanthosaura coronate cage this morning while doing cleaning, by the time I finished the male was already breeding here, the problem is they are not the same specie.
at least I know he's up for the job

You are gaining my interest with all these photos and new species...and hopefully gaining some others interest.
By the way, what is that bedding you are using there? I am so over using peat in my cages for the fact it sticks to them.

Peat moos is a terrible substrate, in the long run it clogs the nasal cavity and renders the Jacobson organ useless, as if that’s not enough, over the years iv seen numerous cases of organ prolapsed, peat stick to hempen and hem clitoris causing irritation that leads to infection and prolapsed.

I use sphagnum moss as shown with this nesting acanthosaura, 8-10in deep is excellent, this product works very well with all tropical forest species, my second choice is oak leafs, these are accepted by most tropical lizards.

They have a huge weight advantage over dirt-sand mix, they hold humidity well and don’t promote fungus, oak in particular offers a wonderful smell that makes your husbandry pleasant, especially sins these lizards defecation is sometime smelly.

Sphagnum offers the advantage of being clean, your animals don’t tint from it like they do with oak leafs, and don’t get dirty as with peat or dirt. Any hard where store keeps sphagnum moss in the plant section.

A tip to keep your moss dry but humid, put 2in of clay pebbles on the bottom before adding the moss, the pebbles will hold water while the moss will hold moisture.

As for the hybrids ?? I don’t know, however these are closely related lizards, I don’t see why they cant produce viable offspring’s. Hybridisation of captive lizards is only desirable if it produces better looking babies, in this case all animals must be clearly tagged as hybrids, so that herper’s willing to work with pure blood know what they are getting.

Rgds

Ps. About peoples interest with acanthosaura, trust me once they see what the future hold in term of coloration and morphs, these will become the most popular lizards.
The herp scene is already bored with the bearded’s and leopard gecko, other specie are either colorless or of bizarre morphology (scinques) some are way to energy demanding (uromastyx and varanids) and others are to nervous ( basilick and hydrosaurus) acanthosaura’s are right up there in the easy to keep department, they show color posibilitys unmatched by any lizards yet, plus they have a naturally good temper.

Oak leaves... You mean just get a bunh of leaves and throw them in the bottom of the Viv? Really? Does it matter what type of oak? How long till you have to replace the leaves.

I have a Huge moneray (sp?) oak tree outside and wouldn't mind harvesting and cleaning soem if it means free substrate wich is natural and smells good and whatnot... I also asume if you did leave the leaves in there they would eventualy decompose and support plant life. That would be good since I have live plants in my Viv...

Try it and see if it works for you, however leafs are broken down by bugs, you may not see them but they are there. Not a problem until they over populate.

Been using leaf litter for decades and have never been bug invaded.

Ok I found a place that has sphagnum moss in good size bricks, much better experience than "green moss" and honestly did not know the difference of the two in the past...the "green moss" is very dusty and thats what detoured me from its use before.
Also looking for this moss I came across large diameter bamboo I had previously looked high and dry for a local supplier, so thanks for getting me out there looking.

One thing, is I feed crickets dusted and dumped into the cage. This new bedding might be a place to hide and if you have any ideas on this it would be helpful.

This is why I use cork as flooring material, I only add sphagnum when they female appears gravid. Sphagnum and leaf litter are excellent, however they do allow insects hiding, this is a problem because at night they climb up the branches and nip on the sleeping lizards, I tong feed or bowl feed when using these substrate.

Also leaf attracts little dug beetles, they aren’t a problem however soon you will have a zillion of them and you substrate will be moving like a living being.

Moss on the other hand will attract fruit fly’s, the poo and dead insects in combination with humidity allows for perfect incubation of fruit fly’s, I hate these little fly’s as they invade my entire house.

I usually keep a pair of emerald swifts in the leaf litter cages and house geckos in the moss cages to counter the bug attack syndrome.

If they are not the same speicese then what will happen? I have been wondering this...