Disclaimer: The most of this post is a bunch of jibber jabber….If you would like to take a shot at my questions only, scroll down to the last 2 segments at the bottom.
I remember when I was 12 I had seen my first Tokay in a Reptiles Around the World field guide. I had an incredible library of reptile books as my parents were always willing to accommodate with something more educational than a NES game. This guide in particular covered the locales, diet, mating seasons and other little factoids about the gecko. It did not cover anything on captive care as it was just an informational field guide. I tried to do research on tokays at the library and came up short from what I really needed to know on their captive care (BTW, this was pre-internet era and was 20 years ago…not saying that everything on the internet is carved in stone but…errr…ummm….there holds some value on here and on the forums….you get my point).
I found myself in the position where I had brought home a phenomenal report card. So, my proud parents took me to a pet store 30 miles away and I walked up to the attendant and asked him for a tokay and everything I would need to take care of it. After some private conversation with my parents, we walked out of the door 45 minutes later with a green iguana.
So here I am, 20 years later still living and breathing reptiles. I have ALWAYS admired the tokays from a distance, meaning never took the leap to owning a pair…until now.
I purchased a WC pair last weekend at a reptile show. I must have spent 45 minutes trying to find a male and female pair that looked like they had a fighting chance of recovery in captivity. It was certainly not as easy to sex them as rhacodactylus or leopards. The vendors didn’t seem to know much as they were telling me all that was on the table were all females because they all lacked noticeable bulges. By the end of our short conversation, they gave up on me and just told me to let them know when I was ready for the purchase as I got each wide mouthed tokay out and flipped them over to inspect their “V”’s .
So, they are now in a 40 gallon terrarium and as expected, very reclusive. I do not know how long it will be before they feel comfortable enough to come out at night in our presence or if they ever will. They are drinking a lot of water off of the sprayed leaves and one of them even shed last night. They are still too wigged out to be interested in food.
My questions are:
They are still dark purple and dark orange/red dotted. Is this the stress colors? Will they eventually relax a bit and turn aqua blue with the light red dots?
I know Kevin has been working with the leucys but are there any other morphs?
Thanks for any responses in advance!
Severa
