(upbeat instrumental music) - Hey, good morning everybody
and welcome to the vlog.
I hope the start of your day is truly incredible.
I am back to this enclosure.
We talked about this a couple weeks ago
about what I was gonna do with this enclosure
and you guys gave me some good suggestions.
I mentioned an animal that I was thinking about putting in.
Well, guess what?
Today we have a shipment of animals that is coming in
that will eventually live in this enclosure.
And when I think of this enclosure
I think of the rainforest.
I mean I realize it's gotta be planted out a ton
but this is kinda rainforest feel,
that backdrop that I can really see
with amazing amounts of plants.
This is gonna be a spectacular enclosure
but for now we have to go ahead and unbox
and show you the animals that will eventually live in here.
(air whooshes) And here it it.
Of course, my friends at Underground that sent me
the caiman lizard yesterday sent this next box
and this is some animals that actually
I asked you guys about, I don't know, a few weeks ago
and you said, "Yes, you should definitely get them."
So I am going to show you how amazing they are.
I think these are animals I actually worked with
when I was like 20 years old and actually even produced them
which was really cool.
Oh my God, these things are so dope.
Oh my God, they're crazy fast so I'm gonna try to open this
and see if I can hold one but there's a chance I might be
running around trying to chase this thing around.
Let's see.
Oh, come on little buddy.
Oh oh.
And of course, right here.
These are little green basilisk,
which are little plumifrons.
These are what they call the Jesus lizards,
the one that can run across the water.
I mean these things are so absolutely incredible.
We've got a male and two females, but listen guys,
you saw that that huge enclosure there
was probably gonna be a little bit big
so we're gonna come back to that
and probably plant that out within the next week or two
and start getting things kinda growing out
so these guys can eventually move into there.
For now, they would probably get lost in there,
to be honest with you,
and I wanted to start with young animals
'cause you guys know how I feel about that.
I want young animals to grow and to be habituated
and look at how chill this is.
I was expecting this thing to run away
so I'm not sure that we'll get these guys to a point
where you can handle them or not
'cause they're a little bit skittish but we might, you know.
I'm not sure.
The important thing is to have this really good
kinda planted out enclosures
where they feel really comfortable
that way they're not skittish
but when they're babies, we can maybe habituate them
and socialize them to be this docile.
That is incredible.
This is a little girl.
Of course, the boys have that big sail, right.
They get that huge sail that looks so prehistoric
and so amazing.
They also go through that ontogenetic change, as well
where they're gonna be bright green
with some white blotching on 'em.
Oh my God, these guys are so absolutely incredible,
so I couldn't be more excited.
Of course, we've got this one little female here
and she's like, "No, don't put me back."
(lively cartoonish music)
(chuckles) Oh my God, as a matter of fact
I'm gonna keep her out for a second.
This is actually the boy right here.
Let's see if the boy is as chill as this girl is here.
Oop, there you go, baby.
And you can start to see right on the back, right there,
is the little plume, why they call 'em plumifrons
is that little kinda start of the ridge
that will go all the way from here all the way down the body
into the tail.
As adults, this male is literally one
of the coolest-looking lizards on the planet, in my opinion.
The females do get a little bit of a plume
but not nearly as much.
It's still, nonetheless, a pair of 'em here
and then we've got one other little female here.
We figured we'd just put together a nice little group
and see what happens, regardless.
Let's go ahead and look at the cage
that we actually are gonna put these guys into right now,
and you gotta remember these are very rainforest animals
so we want high humidity in these things.
Again, lots of plants, lots of misters.
When we actually have this bigger enclosure,
we're gonna put automatic misters on 'em constantly.
For now, we're just gonna have to mist them down
two, three times a day.
Nevertheless, I'm surprised they're so chill.
I never expected them to just be sitting
in my hand like this.
This gives me hope that we'll be able to
really get these guys socialized.
So there you guys have it.
You guys said it was a good idea.
I got 'em.
I can't thank the guys from Underground enough.
Let's go ahead and set this enclosure up.
(air whooshes) So obviously
that large enclosure's gonna be too big
for those small lizards right now
'cause they would get lost.
I think they would enjoy it, don't get me wrong.
I'm more worried about them finding food, right.
We would maybe have to put so many crickets and roaches
in there for them to find it
so you really wanna start smaller,
get them a little bit established,
and then move them up once they're really established,
especially if we can maybe even start feeding them
off of tongs because then it doesn't matter
if they're small, they can be in that large enclosure
and we can feed them off of tongs
and they get the right amount of food intake.
Right, but for now we're gonna go back
to this caiman lizard cage,
the kind of utility cage that we're using.
Now, the thing is is you definitely want the humidity
to be up so I'm gonna have a nice big layer
of our coconut bedding right down here,
the reptile prime bedding.
We'll probably go with ABG or a BioActive in the other cage,
to be honest with you,
'cause we want plant a lot of live plants.
But this is a temporary, for a month maybe two months
at the very most.
But one of the things we're gonna want
is a lot of climbing branches.
We're gonna want so foliage in here the best we can
so that they feel really comfortable,
and again, a nice water dish and just get this thing
to where they have lots of areas to run.
The basking spot's gonna be over here.
The cool spot's gonna be over here.
So as many vines and kind of things that they can climb on,
the more comfortable they're gonna feel.
So now it's about creativity.
Let's just go ahead and se what we can do.
(air whooshes)
(upbeat instrumental music)
(air whooshes) - What is going on, guys?
So I got me and my buddy Karma here
and I'll tell you right now, man, I love chameleons.
They really are some of the coolest animals.
First lizards I ever really got into.
Didn't really bought and kept but first ones I ever saw
in a pet store, chameleon right here.
But we're not actually here to talk about this guy.
We are here to talk about this guy.
So this right here is actually Guacamole,
our Meller's chameleon, trioceros melleri.
Look at this guy.
He looks like an actual prehistoric animal.
I wanted to talk to you guys
about some of the chameleon attributes.
Now, they don't necessarily change colors,
they just simply shade.
They go darker or lighter.
They have all these little crystals in their body
called chromatophores.
Now, these chromatophores they move around,
they'll reflect light from one way or the other
and that actually collects sort of that pigment
and shows what you're seeing here to right now.
As you can see right there, those claws, man.
Like I'm telling ya, it actually feels like
a little three or four year old kid holding onto my wrist
just like gripping real hard.
And those claws, they will really, really
get into your hand with it,
like you can actually see right there.
You see how hard.
The actually claws will actually hold onto their branches
and hold on to anything so if a wind were to come by
or anything like that, they're not falling off.
One more fascinating feature about chameleons is their eyes
and one of the ones that most points out,
besides the color change.
However, when you're really, really look at it
they way they move their eyes they look you
right in your pupil.
They look at you right in your face.
These animals, they don't need to turn their head
towards you, they just simply need to get
that eye towards you.
There's not a whole lot of blind spots on that bad boy.
He knows what's going on around him, everywhere around him.
That tongue is actually really cool
'cause it doesn't do exactly what you think it is.
We all see it coming out blip, like that
and it goes out and grabs something, right.
Well, believe it or not, the way their tongue is structured
not like that at all.
It actually kinda catapults and goes flap, like that.
It's so fast.
It is within a fraction of a second.
That's the reason it looks like a straight line comes out.
There's so much more going on there that we don't see
because it's happening so quickly.
It's like a 12-13 centimeter-long tongue.
Like that means out to here.
Twice the length of their body.
And like for an animal that's so large,
that's a lot of tongue, man.
That is a lot.
You must be quite the linguist.
(air whooshes) - And I think that
that's gonna be good enough for them.
In a perfect world, we'd probably do live plants
but to be honest with you right now,
nurseries are pretty much shut down or just opening up
and there's not a lot of availability of live plants,
so I did what I could possibly do.
I think that there's lots of foliage in here.
They can actually climb on tons of different stuff.
They can get really close to the heat spot.
They can get away from it.
There's all kinds of stuff and that's gonna make 'em feel
real secure.
I think this is a great start, right.
You know, when we get them into the bigger cage
they'll be a little bit more open areas here and there
but I think for now,
this is gonna make them feel real comfortable.
Hopefully get them settled in
where we we can actually start socializing them
and get them used to us feeding them and stuff like that.
So all we have to do know is get a water bowl in here,
release 'em in here,
and then give 'em a nice spray down because again,
with this enclosure because you want high humidity
probably two or three times a day
we're gonna be misting these down.
Again, the bigger enclosure we'll actually put on
an automatic mister so that we don't have to do it ourself,
do that four times a day.
So let's go ahead and get these little monkeys in here.
(air whooshes) All right, so it's time
to put these guys in here and see how they're gonna
actually like it.
So I'm gonna take this one female first
and just slowly open (lid cracks)
this up.
We'll just let her go in there and run around
and see what's going on, see what she does.
These guys are definitely lightning quick
so I'm gonna put the male and the other female
that I just put in this box really quick.
Hopefully they won't run away real quick
when I open this up.
(styrofoam creaks) Oh.
Man, are they quick.
Gonna just put that right up there.
Oh man, they look so cool in here.
This is the boy.
I'm just gonna put him right here.
Oh, look at--
Oh my gosh, they are unbelievably lightning quick.
These guys are something else.
I guess that's why that call them Jesus lizards, right.
But look at how cool they look in there.
I mean, it's amazing.
They literally match the coloration of the branches
and then match the coloration of the foliage.
I mean those things look ridiculous.
And like I said, once they go through
that ontogenetic change and turn bright green, oh my God,
some of the most beautiful lizard on the planet.
I think they're gonna really love this 'cause again,
they have all kinds of options in here.
Way up high, he's right by the heat light right there
but they can get down, get over here,
get in the back, crawl.
You can see that one just jumped right back
on the ledge over there.
This one's climbing up the rock face over here.
I mean, this is gonna be perfect for them.
Again, mist them down, keep the humidity high.
These guys will eat all kinds of different bugs
so we're gonna vary their diet like we do all our lizards
so there we are.
We got some really cool basilisk lizards
and eventually, they're gonna go into that large enclosure
and look so dope.
So let me know in the comments what you guys think.
Are you excited that we got some Jesus lizards?
I know I sure am.
(air whooshes) (upbeat instrumental music)
Onto the (mumbles) eggs for the day.
This is actually an albino (drawer clicks)
het ghost scaleless corn snake right here
so we'll see if she has some good eggs in here.
Doo doo doo, yep, they look pretty good
and she's actually bred to this male right here,
which is a beautiful blizzard male right here.
So we're definitely gonna get albinos,
possibly het or snow and blizzard and scaleless
and all kinds of other potential options here.
These are pretty big eggs
so there doesn't seem to be a lot of 'em
which is a little bit unusual for a relatively big girl.
These are just like twice the size eggs
you would normally see
and of course, usually when you get twice the size eggs
you get half as many eggs, of course.
So we only have two, four, six, seven eggs
which is a pretty small clutch.
Typically, a corn snake's gonna have 12 to maybe 18 eggs.
And she looks like a beautiful girl here.
I mean, look at how gorgeous she is.
That's not just a normal albino.
That almost looks more like a candy cane corn,
to be honest with you.
So we'll get mama back in here.
(drawer whooshes) We'll get her some water,
get her all cleaned up and stuff like that.
So that is the first clutch, let's move on.
(air whooshes)
Speedy, I do not need your help
when it comes to collecting eggs.
He always wants to help out.
He's a good puppy.
(air whooshes) This next clutch is exciting.
This is the first Peublan milk snake clutch of the year
and you can see she's already out of her egg box
meaning she's completely done.
And this is a Halloween Peublan milk snake right here.
Basically, just meaning that there's not as much
of the red pigment so it's mainly like black and orange.
This one does have some red and it's a polygenic trait,
just meaning that every time you breed 'em
you breed for the most orange and the reduction of red
and eventually you can get a solid black and orange snake,
hence the name
Halloween Peublan. (lid cracks)
Let's see what she has.
Oh my God, a beautiful clutch.
And it's always nice that a first clutch of a species
like a Peublan has good eggs.
It usually tells you there's a good chance
that the rest of that colony is gonna do pretty well.
This is a beautiful clutch right here, for sure.
Quite a bit of eggs for a milk snake.
Two, four, six, eight, nine eggs.
I mean, that's a good way to start the year for Peublans.
(air whooshes)
(upbeat instrumental music)
(air whooshes) I literally sometimes forget
that we even have this little party room.
It's such an amazing place and, of course,
we built it for birthday parties and events
and you guys know that we're not open right now
but it's such a cool place.
I need to spend some more time in here
just relaxing a little bit 'cause it's just so tranquil.
But I know we'll be open relatively soon.
I'm hoping, you know fingers crossed,
maybe we can start doing private tours and small events here
maybe by the end of May.
That's what my hope is.
And maybe sometime, if everything goes well in June,
we can do some sort of opening.
I've been thinking a lot about
how we're gonna actually do that to keep everyone safe,
so I'll do a vlog 100% about what I'm thinking about
in the next week or so,
but for the meantime I'm just gonna sit here
and enjoy this beautiful room that, literally,
is never being used now.
So I can't wait till there's tons of people in here,
they way I intended it.
(air whooshes)
(laughs) Just a quick checkup.
These guys are unbelievably cute.
I am over the moon happy.
I haven't had basilisks since I was a kid.
I am so excited to see these things grow.
It's amazing, and by the way, if you enjoyed this
here's an entire playlist of unboxing stuff,
if you so chose.
If you want, you can actually show my podcast some love,
"Checking In".
You can do that right over here.
On this side, you can subscribe to this vlog channel,
if you don't mind.
Have an absolutely wonderful day.
Remember to be kind to someone
and I promise I'll see you guys tomorrow.