New Scale Herpetoculture

Ebenavia kid, all grown up and ready to try for some F2s.

A couple of F1 Ebenavia growouts. Still have more hoarding and accumulating to go before I’ll be in a position to part with any, but slow forward progress is still progress!

Two of my three OG Cordylus tropidosternum (“tropical girdled lizards”). This trio’s produced all of my CBBs. They’re getting older - I’ve had them for about nine years, and they were adults of unknown ages when I got them. Regardless, they still manage to look better than they did when I got em.

This old man is my last Paroedura ibityensis - the only one I held onto when I stopped breeding them. Not sure how many more years he’s got left in him, but he’s still looking solid for likely being 10+ years old.

New kid on the block!

Ebenavia somethingoranother | Madagascan clawless gecko

I don’t think I’ll ever take a cooler reptile photo. Only time I’ve ever caught a hard-shelled egg species truly mid-hatch.

I moved most of my ibityensis out a few years back, but I kept this one’s dad around, because I wasn’t ready to let all of them go. He is living his best retired life.

I apologize for posting so many P. ibityensis photos lately, but tonight I happened upon number FIVE for the week mid-hatch! There's no way I'm not sharing that. Cloud 9!

F1 CBB Ebenavia somethingoranother. This little one is probably about 1/3 grown already.

(NFS)

Hand models.

Ebenavia somethingoranother | Madagascan clawless geckos

(NFS)

Very probable 1.1 yearling F1 CBB offspring from my 2016 group that have lost my collection’s game of musical chairs.

Half siblings, able to travel solo or via the buddy system. Already about 2/3 grown. I’d strongly prefer them to find refuge with other keepers already working with the species, as they’re still not securely established in the hobby. Yet.

Message the New Scale Herpetoculture page if them’s flighting words!

A few shots of an F1 Ebenavia that’s getting close to breeding size. (NFS)

Took some slightly more formal photos of a juvie Ebenavia. This one is at most about 1.5” (3.8 cm) TOTAL length. Glad it was willing to sit still every so often.

F1 CBB Ebenavia somethingoranother.

Big congrats to these two young graduates that [checks notes] have now grown big enough to move out of deli cups with fabric lined covers and into containers the size of “normal” gecko species’ hatchlings.

F1 Ebenavia aff. boettgeri “IDFK”*

*nomenclature based solely on a likelihood that they’re boettgeri based on fragmented available information. Notes from a 2018 paper indicate that it is likely that less than half of the genus is described - of those sp., these align best with E. boettgeri, but it can’t be considered conclusive until more taxonomic work clarifies the scene.

Juvie F1 CBB Ebenavia aff. boettgeri “IDFK bruh”, just starting its ontogenic color/pattern change.

(NFS)

Totes adorbz til you realize that sometime in the last 24 hours those two had to exit her buttcrotch.

Tried some new pairings a couple months back and it seems to have gotten the ball rolling pretty well! Ebenavia can be pretty touchy to figure out compatible pairings of. They’re not aggressive to each other, they just tend to not produce at all until you find the right pairing combination. I’ve also found that splitting them up intermittently and reintroducing the same pair seems to stimulate breeding quite a bit. Novel mate syndrome rings true for them in every respect.

Let’s change the world. Together.

Solid Ebenavia check-in today. Probably worth more as eggs than as post-hatch tiny brown ferret lizards. I mean, in this economy? With egg prices where they’re at?! Get outta here.

Got marginally fancier with my harassment of my Tiny Feather Duster Ferret Geckos®️.

Ebenavia. They're Ebenavia.

I recently switched up a few Ebenavia groups to try different pairings, as compatible pairings are trickier to come by than with most species. Looks like some of them decided they were among the right company, as I have a few new clutches on the way.

Impromptu maternity shoot with this masochistic little pea pod, who, like all female Ebenavia, insists on producing eggs that big.

A group of Ebenavia is called an "oh f& , where'd they go?".

This probably amounts to about 16g of geckos.

Among the bigger of the females from this spring’s batch. An odd one, too, but in a good way. I have a lone male 2018 dude who’s broad-tailed, small-tubercled, (relatively) blunt-snouted, and huge for the several smaller species, and no others that I’ve gotten in over the past couple years have lined up with him. I figured he very well might be destined to be a permanent bachelor, but this one female is about as perfect a match as they come.

They were finally introduced about a week ago, and while I can’t see any absolute belly evidence that she’s prepping eggs, she definitely looks like she’s thiccening up.

To say this genus is full of cryptic species would be an understatement. They produce great when paired up with compatible (read: same species) mates, but, well… that part’s easier said than done.

A couple more Ebenavia were born yesterday. For the first little stretch of time, these guys are baaarely big enough to eat melanogaster fruit flies (the smaller of the two commercially available fruit fly species!).

New Scale Herpetoculture updated their information in their About section.

One benefit to not relying on reptile breeding as a source of income is that I have the convenience of saying what I want to as****es without fear of losing any livelihood.

If you support yesterday’s SCOTUS decision regarding access to crucial healthcare, please kindly get the f**k off my page. I do not want your support, and I certainly do not need it. Spend that money on a Bible and read up on Genesis, where it is unambiguously stated that life begins at first breath. It takes clear precedent to the passage from Psalms that illiterate bigots so often cling to.

Thanks for coming to my TedTalk, and farewell to the worst of you.

It’s well worth acknowledging my idiocy to also acknowledge the following:

Just shy of two months ago, I got my second “litter” of Cordylus tropidosternum - one baby. They tend to produce anywhere from 3-6 babies per litter, sometimes more, but just one certainly wasn’t unheard of. I checked the next day and didn’t find any more, so I [this is where he gets dumb] stopped looking. In the nearly two months since, I’ve only ever seen one baby out at a time, so I had no real reason to doubt that there was indeed just the one. Still, I never stopped being a little suspicious.

Whelp, today I saw two. Combed the cage and ended up finding a total of three. Three is a different number than one.

That makes a total of seven F1 CBB Cordylus tropidosternum between both litters from my LTC 2016 trio. Happily embarrassed.

Welcomed F1 CBB Cordylus tropidosternum "litter" #2 for the year yesterday. Wait... is it still a litter if there's only one? Luckily litter #1 was a hefty 4-pack of sassy pine cones, so I ended up with 5 total this round.

Either way, I'm stoked to add another to the crew. This species used to be extremely common (and cheap) as imports, but have all but dried up in the years since. My LTC trio is getting up there in age, too. Luckily, some new imports have recently come available again, mixed in with and often mislabeled as C. beraduccii, but it's been in very small numbers. Hopefully they landed in the hands of dedicated keepers who can help contribute some new blood to the hobby.

With any luck, I'll have a repeat pair of litters again in 2024 - this species (as with many Cordylids) is known to skip a year more often than not.

We've got four on the floor. So far - not sure if she's done flinging pinecones out her hoohah.

F1 Cordylus tropidosternum ("tropical girdled lizards") from my very LTC trio. Two months later than in 2020, so I was awfully confident they weren't gonna produce this year. Glad I was wrong!

NFS

A couple photos of my old man/lifer Paroedura ibityensis and one of his refreshed digs.

I no longer breed this species, but they’re still one of my favorites.

Some fresh meat from this morning. 2022’s bein all flirty right out the gate.

Ebenavia somethingoranother. Guitar pick for scale.