Ahhh, finally!!! The otters were out. Maybe because it was a sunny day for a change (although it was quite cold for October, brrr… Lyons Cub wore a scarf and woolen hat for the first time outside). We made a trip to the Wildpark in Leverkusen again, in the hopes of seeing some animals that…
Lyons Cub loves parks, like the one with the climbing animals and exercisers, but most of all, he likes to pet animals. (Well, he grew up with two dogs, Honey and Sally, and two cats, Felix and Frankie, and several crested and gargoyle geckos.) So today, he was in for a treat. He had been…
On Wednesday, September 7th, 2011 after an evening meeting at University Baptist Church (UBC) in Carbondale, IL, I walked down the steps and saw a particularly grumpy old lady screaming at something that was jumping up and down in front of her car… She finally opened her car door to drive home, and that thing…
When running around on the playground, Lyons Cub stumbled upon something extraordinary–well, for a little boy: a lime hawk moth caterpillar! No, it doesn’t sting with its blue horn. It just looks a bit scary. It was rather big, about as thick and long as the index finger of an adult: It had tiny, white…
They are beautiful; they are frowned upon. Many reptile breeders admonish hobbyists not to “dilute the gene pool,” arguing that in nature, different species usually don’t mate, either. (Sometimes, they do, but generally, they live in different habitats and have different maintenance requirements, making a shared environmental niche more difficult). Reptile lovers who are against…
Being a reptile breeder has its pros and cons. The pros are that one gets to witness the mystery of birth, and the cons are how to give all the little baby geckos a good, new home. Just like I received many breeder animals per mail with shipyourreptiles.com, I also shipped out many animals to…
Cuteness overload!!! As opposed to mossy leaf-tailed geckos or chahoua geckos, crested geckos are an ideal beginner’s pet and great to start kids on – to keep them addicted well into adulthood, haha! Especially when your child is allergic to cats and dogs, geckos are often a good way out. They can be tamed and…
Do you like creepy crawlies, especially when they are a little ghoulish and not just cute? Then, these little horned geckos might be the ideal pet for you. Like crested geckos, gargoyle geckos stem from the island of New Caledonia and are also called, “New Caledonian bumpy geckos,” since they have two bumps or horns…
Master of deception, king of hiding – the arboreal mossy leaf-tailed gecko can do mimicry really well and assimilate into its surroundings. This way, it can hide from its predators. They are reported to have lived up to 5 years in captivity; their real life span in the wild is yet unknown. These geckos are…
Do you have allergies and need to forego furry friends? Then, scaly friends might be just the right pets for you! There are no known allergies to geckos, as far as I know. Leopard geckos, just like crested geckos and gargoyle geckos, are a great entry-level pet for collectors and future breeders alike. When I…
He was supposed to be snake food. This is the story of how I set out to vend geckos as “LZRDGRL” at a Kentucky reptile show and came home not with a new gecko, but with a tiny kitten: Frankie! We had quite an adventurous trip from Carbondale, IL to Shepherdsville, KY. First, we drove…
I loved her more than Sally. I know you should love all your children equally, but Honey was special. She had eyes the color of caramel that looked right into your soul. She came from difficult circumstances; she had lived on the streets before we got her from the shelter. Who knows what she had…
After I had become a lecturer of English at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale in 2007, I purchased my first home, and to offset the mortgage, I had taken in a student tenant, Jielei. She was an athlete and a life-guard in the Rec Center. We had nothing in common, except for one thing: we…