Observing my additions to his enclosure

Hey y’all. Long hiatus but I’m back now. I had to take a while to sort out some medical drama.

It just makes it harder to see!

What would happen if an animal got a tattoo and then it's fur regrew over it? This is definitely absolutely nothing to do with werewolves

animals get tattooed all the time! it works just like it does for humans but if there's fur in the way you just can't see it, so it's usually done on hairless areas like ears.

Aries enjoying some dandelion

This frog made my dog so uncomfortable when he heard it

*high pitched peeping*

Your friendly local ecology major with a basic grasp of genetics and population dynamics is back to say, once again, that mixed-breeds being healthier because of natural selection or genetic diversity is a *myth* unless natural selection is actually acting on them, such as in landraces, feral packs, and villiage dogs.

Natural selection and genetic diversity are factors in *populations* not individuals, and genetic diversity only improves health if natural selection is allowed to weed out (read: kill) undesireable traits over many generations. 

Unsupervised dogs can still breed with issues like painful hip displaysia, elbow displaysia, heritable defects, dangerous temperaments, improper conformation, and a myriad of other problems if they’re not immediately fatal in utero or at birth. 

That means that if puppies with what would be considered a “defect” by natural or artificial selection end up in irresponsible homes, they can continue to create more puppies with preventable issues. This because in this case, problems that *over many generations* could have been selected against if true natural selection (or artificial selection by a breeder) was occurring, are not selected against, because the dogs are fed (do not have to hunt or forage), behavioral issues are excused (rather than removed from a responsible breeding program), and dogs receive medical care (rather than dying, as they would in the “wild”). 

To put it more simply, in order for selection (natural or otherwise) or genetic diversity to create healthier dogs, dogs have to die (or at least not breed) if they have issues, rather than receiving medical care and/or having litters due to negligence, which is not the case for the majority of mixes that end up US shelters.

Just some Manchego and Gorgonzola

Sad reindeer man

Penelope is cute, even if she uprooted all of the plants I just put in her cage

There were treats in the bag for enrichment and he shoved his whole dang head in there😂

Christmas dinos

Gorgonzola having a soak

So did we!

First pajama day of the season

If you buy from or know a breeder that supports/sells/ or breed spider ball pythons, Stop Supporting them and Publicly shame them immediately. There is no excuse to continue breeding an animal that is known to ALWAYS have a neurological defect just because they're pretty.

Spider ball pythons can be easily identified by their drippy minimalistic patterns, they are incredibly striking animals and its easy to see why they are sought after.

The Spider Ball Python morph causes an extreme neurological defect that is intrinsically tied to the phenotypic manifestation of the spider gene and how it affects neurological development.

The defect essentially causes them to be unable to balance themselves or tell up from down.

This can causes minor head swaying or wobbling, which can cause the snake to have difficulty feeding and navigating its enclosure but overall does not impact their quality of life. This is however a rarity.

Most often though, the wobble is extreme, causing the snake to corkscrew or flip upside down because it has no sense of balance. These animals are entirely unable to feed or navigate their enclosures.

The spider wobble appears at birth, though the severity increases over the lifetime of the animal and manifests most extremely in recently bred females.

These animal have extremely poor quality of life and over half of them must be euthanized on hatching because they will fail to thrive.

All of this is common knowledge within the herpetological community.

Continuing to breed and support the breeding of these animals is incredibly inhumane.

There is no excuse.

Boycott Spider Ball Pythons so that people stop producing these poor miserable snakes that are doomed from conception to have neurological defects.

Hims feets too big for hims body

Hi! I have a beardie and I have a few questions if you don’t mind! I saw a video where your beardie was outside and I was just wondering if you’re ever worried that they’ll try to run off? I would love to be able to take my beardie outside but I’m terrified that he would run away, and I’m disabled so I wouldn’t be able to catch him. I’ve looked at strings harnesses that you can make, but when I put one on him it looked like if he wiggled around enough he could just slip out of it. Do you have any advise? Please feel free to ignore this if you want! I have other questions but I don’t want this to get too long or to bother you

@alexsian I think it probably depends on what you are comfortable with. I never took Aries off leash as a baby because he was fast and liked to run around. Now that he is older though I will take him out in my backyard off leash because he normally mostly just eats plants and does a few short sprints. The fence also does a decent job of blocking him in (though I wouldn’t trust it unsupervised). If you aren’t confident in being able to contain your beardy if they get spooked though there are other options! I’ve seen a lot of people use puppy play pens or build their own outdoor enclosures (they don’t have to be super big either if the goal is just to let them have natural sunlight) I’ve also seen people use tall kid pools though they can jump out of those if they really try (it does slow them down though and give you time to react) and even rabbit hutches.

The last three pictures are the outdoor run I built for the animals that I can’t trust outside (looking at you Damascus👀). But all are valid options. Harnesses are also a good option and lizard loverz on Etsy sells some really nice ones that I’ve found to fit better than the pet store ones as long as you follow the sizing chart. They also make cute dragon wing options.

Also don’t worry about bothering me. I love talking about reptiles.