A.

AL. - makeup;decor & animals 

[omg-snakes]

[drdandy]

Perfect smile.

[mrs-bluesky]

we took cinder outside on the last 80° day! he seemed to really like smelling new things!

[leopardgeckos101-blog]

Blep

[omg-snakes]

[the-tree-line]

:D

[katzenmusik-blog1]

[wapiti3]

Travel in East Africa in the years 1903-1905 with funds from the Hermann and Elise born Heckmann Wentzel Foundation 

By  Voeltzkow, Alfred, 1860 -

Publication info Stuttgart: E. Swiss Bartsche Verlagsbuchhandlung 1906 - 1923.

BHL Collections: Smithsonian Libraries

[markscherz]

LOOK AT THESE BEAUTIFUL GECKOS. DAMN.

[bbreptiles]

Mojito shed! (Male Boa imperator)

[snakerambles]

Awh little bacon still looks amazing!

[wheremyscalesslither]

mmmm soft serve!

[the-long-dog]

tips for breaking a ball python fast

This is regarding established adult ball pythons after quadruple checking that your husbandry parameter basics like heat, humidity, etc are correct. Also these are just things that have worked for me personally.

-Trying a different rodent supplier.

-Trying a different color of feeder

-Trying a different size of feeder. Just one step smaller or one step larger than you usually offer.

-Trying to scent your feeder. For me it was rubbing a f/t m.ouse on my f/t r.at. 

In my opinion scenting should be one of your later options because of how annoying ball pythons can be about deciding they only want a certain kind of food.

[shibasnob]

Apparently scenting using anything frog-related gets a lot of results. Several companies sell “frog juice” for scenting f/t feeders, and it’s often touted as the best thing for scenting. Have you had any experience with this? Also I was really concerned when I read the title because like… I thought it was “how to break a ball python, fast” and i was like “break??? what??? leave that sausage alone”

[the-long-dog]

Its funny, my bf saw me writing this and was like “whos snapping ball pythons?!”

I do not have experience with frog juice. I’ve heard it works great for issues with hognose snake fasting.

[sixlegnag]

I’ve heard chicken scent works on short tails. They’re related enough to balls and pretty much all of us who aren’t vegan or vegetarian have a piece of chicken to scent with somewhere.

Actual chicks can work, too, but I’m not sure I’d risk that with a BP since they’re not as nutritionally complete for (at the sizes small pythons can eat them) as rodents and, as noted, BPs can be very irritating and weird about only eating one stupid thing.

[themuttymutt]

Not a snake owner but curious:

Would chicken broth work or is it better to use real raw chicken?

[varanusindicus]

New additions in their quarantine setup, still needs a bit more foliage. Glad I finally got some of this species.

Madagascan Clawless Gecko, Ebenavia inunguis

[markscherz]

Ah what great geckos! Congratulations!

[biodivlibrary]

BHL Book Feature: Gecko Toes!

Gecko toes have fascinated herpetologists, physicists, and engineers for a long time. If you’ve ever had the occasion to watch them, you know that they can scurry along walls and even suspend themselves from ceilings with such ease! Duméril and Bibron shared in this fascination with detailed black-and-white illustrations of gecko toes byJean-Gabriel Prêtre. Here’s a close up from our featured illustration of a Lined Flat-tailed Gecko (Uroplatus lineatus).

So what is it about gecko toes that make them so sticky? Geckos have tiny hairs called “setae” on their toes that rely on van der Waals forces to create suction. With a multitude of these hairs acting together on the nanoscale level, geckos can stick and unstick seamlessly! Researchers have been studying this ability for applications in adhesives, particularly in space and in robots. 

Gecko toes vary widely in shape, size, and layout, which you can easily see in this plate which contains 8 different species. Here is the breakdown by figure.

FIGURE 1: Seychelles Bronze Gecko (Ailuronyx seychellensis) FIGURE 2: Blue-tailed Day Gecko (Phelsuma cepediana) FIGURE 3: White-spotted Wall Gecko (Tarentola annularis) FIGURE 4: Tokay Gecko (Gekko gecko) FIGURE 5: Kuhl’s Flying Gecko (Ptychozoon kuhli) FIGURE 6: New Caledonia Giant Gecko (Rhacodactylus leachianus). FIGURE 7: Big Tree Gecko (Gehyra oceanica) FIGURE 8: Dakota’s Leaf-toed Gecko (Hemidactylus triedrus)

This week we are featuring André Marie Constant Duméril & Gabriel Bibron, Erpétologie Générale, Vol. 3 Atlas (1854), the first comprehensive scientific description of reptiles and amphibians. Learn more about this foundational work on our blog, and explore more SciArt from the 120 plates in our Flickr album. Thanks to @smithsonianlibraries for contributing this series for digitization!

[herpskeepers]

Yellow-headed day gecko (Phelsuma klemmeri).

Credit: Matthew Schaefer‎

> For more pics, videos & articles visit: herpkeepers.com

[reptiglo-blog]

Leaf Tail Gecko 1 by [ CK ] on Flickr.

My personal favourite.

[tentaclemobster]

Soon the male will be up to breeding size!

[duel-styx]

Sub adult male Henkel’s Leaf-tailed Gecko (Uroplatus henkeli). (For anyone wondering yes he has all his toes, he was just standing on them and was being good and holding still for the photos so I didn’t want to poke at him to fix his feet & beard.)