Paroedura masobe: adult animals + terrariums photos

[mat.si]

Hi!
Here are some photos of my adult animals and my terrariums.

Adult female (that produced 5 babies last breeding season):

Female's Head:

Adult pair (male with regenerated tail on top):

My main masobe terrarium where the pair above is kept:

Smaller terrarium for single females:

Simple terrarium for masobe babies:

I hope this helps.

Regards, Matjaz

 

[kanopy]

This specimens look healthy, not something so commun with that species.
Good job Matjaz!
Regards,
Fred

 

[Bowfinger]

Thanks for the pictures and information Matjaz. I am not going with that male in the picture I am getting two females and possibly a young that looks much healthier. I was trying to get a better male, he will send a picture later. I will post pictures of the females I am getting for sure in just a few. Looks like I am in the market for a male.

 

[Bowfinger]

here are the pics of the two females....

 

[mat.si]

The females look better than the male, but they are still pretty thin.
If they are not too dehydrated and not too stressed out, they might survive.
Hopefully they will start eating soon.
Dehydration and stress probably kill most of the fresh imports.
I never really had much experience with wc geckos.
And btw, what are the prices for wc masobe?

I also noticed that both females have regenerated tails. Which is of course of no big importance, if they survive.

Try to disturb them as little as possibble, until they settle down.
They get much less shy with time. I usually cover the front of their terrariums with cardboard, when I feed other geckos at night to disturb them as little as possible.

When you get them, also try feeding them with snails. They might even be less stressfull, than crickets running around the terrarium.

I had zero success trying to find land snails in my area, that were small enough for my Uroplatus and masobe.
Now my friend and myself have been very successful in feeding small freshwater aquarium snails to both P. masobe and U. phantasticus.
I don't know what species of snail it is, but they are almost ideal snail to feed to the geckos. They are small enough, they are clean and can be easily bred in any freshwater aquarium.
I offer them in small dishes with just a little water (see photo), so they don't die and they also can't escape and hide in the terrarium.
They are eagerly taken by these geckos, mainly females.

I hope you'll be able to find a male.
I'll still have to see, what the sex ratio will be with my babies. I somehow have a feeling there will be more females than males.
First baby from 2004 turned out to be female.

Regards, Matjaz

 

[sune jensen]

Hi Matjaz

I makes me happy to see that you are doing such a good job with the masobe.
Keep up the good work!!

-Sune

 

[Bowfinger]

Thank you for the information Matjaz. I am most likely getting the two females for $200 shipped, this is lower than prices in the past. I have a price of $900 a pair written down on the back of a very reasonably prices exporters card, this was many years ago. The only thing is I paid upfront to get a better deal, something I usually don’t do with people I don’t know much about. The thing is other dealers could not get them and this guy claimed to have the only 10 on some type of quota. I actually have been waiting for him to return my e-mail as he has had them for sale for more money on kingsnake.com. This is after he told me what females he will sell me and will ship Thursday (he has my money already)...I think he is trying to get more money and if he does he will tell me sorry but no deal. :?

There is a lot more to the story but I don’t want to bore everyone...just a WARNING watch out for who you give your money to upfront!

By the way I have some large Madagascar roaches, have you ever fed yours any?

 

[mat.si]

I've bred two species of Mad. hissing roaches along with many other species of roaches for years. Now I'm only breeding Blaptica dubia. I gave all the other roaches away, because they were either too big, too fast, or could climb.
I never used my hissing roaches as feeders as I had many better choices.

Some of my masobe have actually took small headless dubia from forceps a couple of times, but were not too enthusiastic about them. I didn't dare to just let the roaches roam the terrarium.

My masobe mosty eat Gryllus assimilis, because they are a bit slower then other crickets (I breed three species) and don't jump so much.
But the assimilis crickets will chew on live plants leaves like no other feeder insect.

Matjaz

 

[Bowfinger]

Matjaz, you are definitely one of the most dedicated herpetuculturists I have talked to. It is amazing to talk with you and I really appreciate your help. I am sure everyone else is appreciative as well.
I will let you know what I am getting in today, as with this guys(seller) communication skills I have no idea :? . I had these roaches so I was thinking a good way to add some weight. I would rather not even offer if it would be a problem considering the limited time to get these guys eating and established.

 

[David]

Thanks again for all the greats infos and photos Matjaz!

(esp. the idea of the water snails, never thought of that )

 

[Bowfinger]

Ok I got them in and they are a young 1.1 pair. The first picture has the male on the left/ female on the right. Since placing in an already misted cage (separate cages) they both have become active licking the leaves of water! I am excited as I was worried to not be able to get them to move at all.

MALE^__________________________________________________________________________FEMALE^

FEMALE^ just introduced to cage

MALE^ just introduced to cage

 

[steve0xr]

They look great Shane best of luck with them.

 

[kenya_1977]

Let me know if you need extra aquatic snails, I have a ton of them and I can ship them to you easily (I work in a hatchery). Might even be able to drum up some terrestrials, they are common around my yard.. but it's pretty cold.

 

[mat.si]

Thank you Shane for the compliments. I try to do my best.
They don't look too bad at all, they actually look surprisingly good for recently imported wc masobe.
They even look like subadult animals, not fully grown. And it's really great that they both have original tails. The tail being one of the most interesting features of this gecko.
They are just a little bit on the thin side, but nothing that couldn't be rectified with a good care.

It's possible that only females will eat snails, since I never actually saw any of mine eat it in front of my eyes. And I don't think they will take snails as a full diet, more like a suplement or a diet variation.

I wish you all the luck with these animals. It really is about time more people start producing some cb masobe.

And thank you Sune. I'm looking forward to seeing you again and to the lichtenfelderi female. (This guy has great geckos. )

And you're welcome David. I'm glad that the good idea has already started to spread. 8)
Hopefully we'll manage to meet in Hamm and say a few words. The expo is always so hectic and I'm always so tired from all the driving and lack of sleep.

Regards, Matjaz

 

[mat.si]

...and to give the credit for the water snails idea to the right person.

My friend, who is a good chameleon breeder and also has a lot of aquariums, originally came up with the idea to try and feed his phantasticus female some water snails for extra calcium. After eating just a few small snails the female developed big calcium sacks in a very short time.

I just took the idea and used it on my phantasticus and then tried it on my masobe as well. My other Uroplatus have not yet taken any water snails as of this writing.

Regards, Matjaz

 

[Bowfinger]

I actually looked for snails at two fish stores in my area. I only found the larger snails or a small snail with a spiral pointed shell. I was trying to find the ones you showed in your picture and couldn’t find a single one! I used to have fish tanks and couldn’t get rid of them before :lol:

Thanks Crystal, sounds like they are not that important right now to ship but if I get to breeding or getting more of these guys I will definitely work something out with you on them...or maybe I will get a handful to breed? I am scared of land snails as they harbor a lot of multi-host parasites, plus the possibility of pesticides.

One thing I just notice with the female is she is very shaky (is that a word?) when she walks. I sprinkled (after noticing the shakes) a little Herptivite on her nose then misted her after she licked up some of the powder...did this to get some electrolytes and amino acids other than that I will try not to disturb them.

One thing I will have to get soon is an a/c to not let this room go above 75F So far I am at 72F in the lower cages and it is only a mild day today.

 

[Hazpat]

we can go to the beach and get some Ive seen them small like that at the tide pools in carlsbad

 

[the moof]

hmmm...i think i could obtain these snails from pretty much anywhere! ^^ (they're all over the place, though mostly we have land snails here...) i wonder if my day would go for them...

regards,
*the moof*

 

[kenya_1977]

Well, just let me know about the snails.. I can get you 100s for just shipping costs. Temperatures are find for shipment because I'm working in a facility that drops temps. They are fine at 45 degrees. I'm really just out to help a sensitive animal out.

-Crystal

 

[Hazpat]

You sound tired Crystal. :lol:
What Kind of hatchery do you work at? Ive toured a white seabass hatchery in carlsbad, CA. it was amazing how industrial a hatchery works