Katsura's Lizards

A blog about lizards. A combo of reblogs and original posts. This blog runs almost 100% off of the queue! I check in regularly for messages, however, so feel free to drop me a line.

[sealsdaily]

Today's Sea Lion Is: Making Contact With An Unknown Beast

[ripe]

thedragonwoodconservancy on ig

[cryptidsydario]

laser gun gator boys

[peniswakt-deactivated20210717]

oh my god i didn’t realize this video had audio

[actualaster]

Okay as adorable as this looks, I’m pretty sure that’s a distress sound?  A “mommy help me I’m scared come save me!” sound?

@why-animals-do-the-thing

[why-animals-do-the-thing]

This video is from Dragonwood Wildlife Conservancy, and they are yearling (last year’s babies) Cuban crocodiles. Good news for you, this isn’t actually a distress call! According to @kaijutegu​ (and her giant bookshelf full of reptile resources), the laser sounds are an affiliative social call that young Cuban crocodiles use to communicate with their parents. They normally stop making the noise at around two years old, which is approximately when they start dispersing from the family group.

See, Cuban crocodiles are a super social species - and one of the few where the fathers stick around and provide paternal care for the babies! In the wild, babies would regularly interact with both parents, including when they provide food. This call is basically the type of vocalization that the babies use to communicated with their parents.

These crocodiles are being hand-raised as part of a private-sector breeding and reintroduction program (because the parents are so protective of their offspring that if you left them the babies to raise, you’d never be able to safely get close to them), and so they’re responding to the guy in the video the same way because he’s constant known safe individual and also the provider of food. He’s not a threat - his presence is a good thing, and he’s worth interacting with because it normally means food. You can also tell from their behavior and body language that they’re not stressed: some of the crocodiles are actively climbing on him and interaction of their own volition, but the ones that aren’t don’t show any indicators of hyper-vigilance. If that were a distress call, every crocodile that heard it would be alert and on edge looking for the threat. Distress calls tend to only happen once or twice, because in the wild continuing to make noise makes a baby more vulnerable: so these crocodiles wouldn’t be continually vocalizing if they felt threatened. There’s no snapping or gaping or freezing, all of which would be behavioral indicators of distress or discomfort. (Here’s a video of a baby nile crocodile being harassed by photographers which will give you a visual reference for both freezing and gaping.)

So, hey, this is certifiably cute - and good for conservation!

[bunjywunjy]

ETHICALLY SOURCED LASER NOISES

[jordisstigander]

[bedupolker]

Amphibian migration season is coming this spring. Remember to drive slow!

[googiekitsch-deactivated2024071]

a really funny thing about my crested gecko is that he likes to watch youtube with me and is evolving into an ipad baby

[googiekitsch-deactivated2024071]

he has this big hollow log propped up against the glass wall of his enclosure that he can tunnel into but instead of using it as intended he likes to climb to the tallest point of it so he can get a direct sight line of my laptop screen, he specifically only does this when a video is playing on it, and will just sit there watching it for hours

[googiekitsch-deactivated2024071]

btw this is the same animal of mine that i had out during my friends rewatch of all the trolls movies, during the second or so movie he was gazing up at the screen watching trolls 2 so intently to the point where i tried to put him back in his enclosure only for him to cling onto the keyboard velcro style and refuse to be picked up because of how attached he was to Trolls 2

[googiekitsch-deactivated2024071]

cocomelon baby of the decade

[lizardposting]

Diagram of crested gecko

[reptiphoric]

Ma'am you look fabulous but I am trying to doomscroll here-

[reptiphoric]

nabby tiem,,,

[loafinglizards]

In your honk shoo era

[thatsbelievable]

[shiftythrifting]

In a charity shop in Marylebone, London.

[modogoblin]

[trisketched]

Floating by

Patreon | Twitter | Instagram

[amnhnyc]

Are you trying to find ways to stay cool during the heat waves this summer? Here’s how the painted reed frog (Hyperolius marmoratus) survives when it gets too hot: It rests motionless on a leaf in a tightly-wound position which helps it retain body moisture and reduce its exposure to the Sun. It can also enter a hibernation-like state, known as aestivation, in which its metabolism rate drops by 50%! And special cells in its skin, called iridophores, reflect sunlight, resulting in a silvery-white color and acting as a sunscreen. You can spot this frog in parts of Africa including Gabon, Mozambique, and South Africa.

Photo: Bart Wursten, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0, flickr

#AnimalFacts #frogs #amphibians #PaintedReedFrog #dyk #aestivation #nature https://www.instagram.com/p/CgkxlWfreyD/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[lionfloss]

Dmitry Starostenkov

[shadyufo]

Guess what I’m hauling in my wagon?

[shadyufo]

A Friend!

[loafinglizards]

*gasp*

[littlealienproducts]

Worlds Tiniest Poison Dart Frog Figure by camphollow

[bettabubble]

got an email from a local aquatics store with a coupon for one free worm

[bettabubble]

this is the coupon btw

[theequeerstrian]

Dear God I hope you walked in and presented this coupon as straight faced as humanly possible

[loafinglizards]

Your finest worm, please

[typhlonectes]

Eastern Collard Lizard (Crotaphytus collaris), Carlsbad Caverns National Park, NM, USA

photograph by D. Miller | National Park Service