As I noted in an earlier article (Canned Insects and Other Invertebrates, July 1, 2008), several companies are now marketing canned grasshoppers, snails, silkworms and other invertebrates.  I believe these to be an important means of providing dietary variety to a wide range of captive reptiles and amphibians.
I have recently been experimenting with the canned [...]

Overview
Every so often I like to cover a species that, while not recommended as a pet, is well worth a closer look.  One such lizard that I have had the good fortune of working with is endemic to North America, the strikingly-marked Gila Monster.
Note: Gila Monsters are bred in captivity and sometimes appear for sale [...]

As summer winds down, resourceful herp keepers are presented with a unique opportunity to treat their pets to a novel food item – providing, at the same time, a source of important nutritional variety. The waning days of summer bring with them the annual die-off of untold millions of large, juicy insects – the annual [...]

Introduction
The family Scincidae, the skinks, contains over 1,200 species – more than any other family of lizards.  Skinks range throughout the Eastern and Western Hemispheres, reaching their greatest diversity in Southeast Asia, Australia and Africa.  Among its members we find some of our most common pet reptiles and least-known lizards.  The following information is meant [...]

Frogs are full of surprises when it comes to reproduction – there are species that incubate eggs below the skin of their backs and in the vocal sacs, while others carry them wrapped about their rear legs or construct foam nests on land.  But in May of this year Boston University biologists working in Panama [...]

An article to be published later this month (Zootaxa; August, 2008) will announce that a newly described Thread Snake from the Caribbean island of Barbados is the smallest of the world’s 3,100+ snake species.  The Barbados Thread Snake grows to a mere 4 inches in length, is no thicker than a strand of spaghetti, and [...]

While working with Green Anacondas in the central Venezuela llanos (please see my article Hunting Anacondas in the Venezuelan Llanos) in the late 1990’s, I was delighted to find that Black Tegus, one of my favorite lizards, were quite common in the area.  Sometimes referred to as “New World monitor lizards”, it was indeed hard [...]

A prolapse of the cloaca (the organ into which the digestive and excretory systems empty, and which houses the penis) is a situation that most herp keepers face at one point or another.  I have observed it most commonly in frogs, less so in salamanders and reptiles.  In a prolapse, the cloaca protrudes through the [...]

 
The responsive ways of North Africa’s massive Spurred Tortoise are well known to private and professional turtle keepers.  Inquisitive and alert, these arid country natives are quick to become possessive of their territories and, sometimes, owners.  They adjust rapidly to changes in their environments – two 80 pounders that I kept in a half-acre outdoor [...]

In my own tanks and those I design for zoos and aquariums, I have long been fond of featuring exposed root systems.  I am also drawn to what used to be termed “shoreline terrariums” – exhibits highlighting shallow water fish and semi-aquatic amphibians, reptiles and invertebrates.  Zoo exhibits are often quite deep and not always [...]