mat.si
Super Moderator
Hi!
Here's an account of an interesting event, documented by the series of photos I took last year.
In March 2006 my oldest Chondrodactylus a. angulifer orange female laid her first pair of eggs for the season.
She buried them in the sand under the clay hiding place she usually uses during the day.
During the process of laying one of the eggs evidently got stuck to the inner wall of the hiding place with a part of its shell.
(C. angulifer lay one of the biggest hard shelled eggs of all geckos, but also the most fragile eggs I've ever seen. Digging up their eggs from a pile of sand is like excavating live mines. They can blow up any second.
)
I didn't know the egg was glued to the hiding place, so I lifted it and the egg broke right off, leaving a part of its outer shell on the clay pot.
It looked like the egg was buried there for at least a week or so, since it was obviously fertile, considering the blood vessels that were clearly visible through the still intact inner membrane.
Since the egg was fertile and still in one piece, I decided to take on an almost impossible mission of trying to save the egg and the developing baby inside.
With a little help from my trusted better half, her more steady hands, some Q-tips and melted bee's wax, we finally managed to repair the hole in the egg's shell.
We tried not to use the wax that was too hot, but I still wasn't sure the embryo wasn't damaged by the heat of the melted wax.
Like always I put both eggs in the incubator at 28 C.
...and then the long wait....
Two and a half months later the first baby from the undamaged egg hatched.
Three days later, to my very pleasant surprise the second baby hatched from the damaged egg. It looked great and seemed completely healthy.
The broken egg shell from the inside.
Two siblings. They were both eating great and growing rapidly. They turned out to be a pair (male and female).
Together with some others they went to the US with Nathan last September.
I hope you enjoy this little educational story.
Matjaz
Here's an account of an interesting event, documented by the series of photos I took last year.
In March 2006 my oldest Chondrodactylus a. angulifer orange female laid her first pair of eggs for the season.
She buried them in the sand under the clay hiding place she usually uses during the day.
During the process of laying one of the eggs evidently got stuck to the inner wall of the hiding place with a part of its shell.
(C. angulifer lay one of the biggest hard shelled eggs of all geckos, but also the most fragile eggs I've ever seen. Digging up their eggs from a pile of sand is like excavating live mines. They can blow up any second.
) I didn't know the egg was glued to the hiding place, so I lifted it and the egg broke right off, leaving a part of its outer shell on the clay pot.
It looked like the egg was buried there for at least a week or so, since it was obviously fertile, considering the blood vessels that were clearly visible through the still intact inner membrane.
Since the egg was fertile and still in one piece, I decided to take on an almost impossible mission of trying to save the egg and the developing baby inside.
With a little help from my trusted better half, her more steady hands, some Q-tips and melted bee's wax, we finally managed to repair the hole in the egg's shell.
We tried not to use the wax that was too hot, but I still wasn't sure the embryo wasn't damaged by the heat of the melted wax.
Like always I put both eggs in the incubator at 28 C.
...and then the long wait....
Two and a half months later the first baby from the undamaged egg hatched.
Three days later, to my very pleasant surprise the second baby hatched from the damaged egg. It looked great and seemed completely healthy.
The broken egg shell from the inside.
Two siblings. They were both eating great and growing rapidly. They turned out to be a pair (male and female).
Together with some others they went to the US with Nathan last September.
I hope you enjoy this little educational story.
Matjaz
