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Jonathan's Jungle
News from
April
and May 2008
26th May
2008 More
exciting news today as the first of the five female
jungle nymphs which I bought in September
2007 as tiny babies (and which are described in the
news story dated 12th March below) has moulted for
the final time to become an adult! I am
delighted to say that not only did she moult
successfully, which in itself is not always
guaranteed as it is a complicated process which can
sometimes results in injury / loss of limbs, but she
has also turned into an absolutely stunning
yellow adult as you can see below:
This yellow colouration is
quite unusual and is certainly not the
normal colouration, and this is the
first one I have ever kept personally which turned
this colour! I'm sure you'll agree that she is
a quite stunning individual and it remains to be
seen whether the other four nymphs, which are at
present all green and all just one moult away from
maturity, will also turn yellow or if they will
remain the more usual bright lime green colour after
their final moult!
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24th May
2008 I had
an interesting day today as I met a rather beautiful
snake which I thought I would share with you, even
though this news story doesn't involve any of my own
animals for a change! Basically I received a
call earlier today from a good friend of mine who
lives just a few miles from me, to say that a family
in her cul-de-sac had found a snake sitting by their
back door and were not sure what it was or what to
do with it.
I went to visit and found
an absolutely lovely young grass snake,
approximately 65 - 70 cm long. The grass snake
is one of only three species of snake which are
native to the UK and, like all British reptiles,
they are protected by law from being injured or
killed. I carefully picked the snake up and
found that it was surprisingly docile and
slow-moving for a wild snake, as they are usually
very nervous and often move extremely quickly to try
to get away. Grass snakes can also discharge a
foul-smelling fluid as a second means of defence,
but this one showed absolutely no signs of defensive
or aggressive behaviour which was certainly quite
surprising.
On closer inspection it
seemed likely to be suffering from dehydration,
probably because of the heat of the day and a lack
of available drinking water in the immediate local
area, so as the family were not keen to keep the
snake in their garden I decided to remove it and
release it somewhere close by, near to a source of
fresh water which grass snakes usually always live
near to. Before releasing it I decided to take
it home and see how it reacted to being given fresh
water and to check that it was ok, and I was not at
all surprised to watch it drink for several minutes
and then spend a good few more minutes completely
submerged in the tub of water I provided it with!
Here it is partially submerged in the water:
After it had spent this
time drinking and being submerged in the water it
behaved MUCH more like a wild snake usually would,
being far more active and defensive than it had been
previously, and it produced the unpleasant smelling
musky liquid when I went to pick it up again.
After taking a few more photographs of it sat on my
lawn I took it back to a natural area close by to
where it had been found earlier and released it back
into the wild where it belongs.
I am sad to say that this
is the first grass snake I have seen in many years
as these days they are much less common than they
were when I was a young child, when I used to find
them regularly close by to my home. This is
largely because many areas of their natural habitat
across the UK have been taken away from them,
to be turned into areas of housing and other
human-influenced places. It is good news for
these wonderful snakes that they are legally
protected, under the Wildlife & Countryside Act
1981, as so many people would sooner kill a snake
than leave it to live another day. I for one
sincerely hope that grass snakes continue to survive
in the UK as they are absolutely beautiful animals
and it was a real privilege to be able to witness
this young one up so close today.
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13th May
2008
During the last few days my first baby leopard
geckos of 2008 have hatched! Five have hatched
so far and there are lots more eggs in the incubator
too, with my four females still producing eggs
regularly at present as well.
Baby leopard geckos usually
have the beautiful yellow and dark brown banded
pattern like the one above, which hatched on May
10th. However, sometimes they have different
patterns and two of my favourite of the five babies
to have hatched in the last couple of days are
pictured below, one of which I managed to photograph
just after it had fully emerged from its egg!
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21st
April 2008
Crested gecko baby number
two for 2008 hatched this evening! It looks
fairly similar to the first one to hatch, which is
quite normal for geckos hatched from a pair of eggs,
and like the first one it is healthy, active and
very beautiful.
I also found another pair
of eggs this evening during a routine check of my
adult crested gecko enclosures, and these are the
first pair of eggs which my very popular gecko named
Peach has produced! She laid them in the
compost substrate at the base of a branch in her
enclosure. I have now moved the eggs into the
incubator with the others, and they should hatch
sometime in the middle of June based on the length
of time it took the first pair of eggs to hatch.
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19th
April 2008
Some very exciting news
this evening as I have just found my first
crested gecko
baby of 2008! It hatched at some point between
18.00 and 22.00 this evening following a 60-day
incubation at 78 degrees Fahrenheit in my home-made
incubator. The top picture clearly shows the
slit in the right hand egg which the baby has
emerged from.
The baby appears to be
strong and healthy and it is certainly very active,
as baby geckos usually are! I have moved the
baby out of the incubator and into an appropriately
furnished small vivarium with lots of potential
hiding places, such as plastic plants and cardboard
tubes, as babies are often nervous and like to be
able to stay out of sight. Overnight he or she
will shed its skin and will look even more colourful
and bright in the morning. I would expect the
other egg in the pair to hatch quite soon now that
the first one has hatched, so watch this space...
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6th
April 2008
I thought I would share
with you just how much animals can change in the
space of a few months, as some of my baby geckos
from last year in particular are showing huge
changes. Here are two of my baby
crested geckos
which hatched on 20th September 2007, so just a
little over six months ago:
When they hatched I thought
the one on the left of the picture was quite a
boring looking one compared to the one on the right,
but here he is now!
As you can see he is
absolutely beautiful and the small number of
dalmatian spots he had as a newly-hatched baby have
spread and in many cases turned into quite large
blotches, so I have decided to name him Blotch!
These blotches are shown even more clearly by the
picture below:
I very
nearly sold this gecko when he was just a few weeks
old but I am SO glad I didn't as he is now one of my
favourites and is quite unlike most of my other
crested geckos because of the size and numbers of
spots he is covered in. It just goes to show
that you can never predict how they are going to
turn out just by looking at their colours when they
are babies!
I am
currently also incubating my first crested gecko
eggs of the new season and am expecting them to
hatch within a couple of weeks, so watch this space!
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