Big Boss died. I have no idea how.

Explain this one to me, dear readers.

Tonight, I checked on Big Boss, my wonder gecko, and was concerned because he hadn't been eating...in almost two weeks. I tried picking him up, and he squirmed a little but was otherwise compliant. This is highly unusual. He would normally be halfway to Timbukbu by the time by finger brushed up against his side. Anyway, I pick him up and start picking shed skin off his toes and legs that he hadn't gotten to yet. He was not putting up a fighting, just chillin'. So I get to his legs and notice that his vent (butt) has a kind of scabby thing stuck in it. That means he's impacted. So I sterilize my tweezers and try to pick it out. Again, he's not totally into it, but he's not going crazy, either. However, it's still hard work because Big Boss isn't having a great time. So I do what I used to do with Liquid--stick him in the fridge for a few minutes to cool him down.

So I do that. Big Boss comes out still sort of moving, but half asleep. I flip him on his back and get to work on the impaction. I actually manage to get a bit out, but it'll take more work. When he starts to wake back up, I give him a break and stick him back in his tank. Naturally, I start reading online about how to dissolve an impaction. Hey look--let him stand in a warm pool of water for about ten minutes. So I fill a shallow dish with warm water, get Big Boss out again, and put him in the water. Again, he's not struggling.

Then the trouble starts. While he was initially standing in the water, he quickly goes limp. The second his nose hits the water, I pull him out. This lizard is completely limp. No idea what just happened. The end of his tail is twitching, though. I put him back in his tank under the heat lamp and let him lay there. A few minutes later, I check back. He's changed positions from laying on his belly to a rather unnatural sideways tilt. I continue to watch, and then the freakiness happens: his body convulses uncontrollably--I can't tell if he's half-paralyzed or having a seizure. These convulsions are very short but occur once every few minutes. It becomes pretty obvious that his brain is not turned on right now. Eventually the convulsions stop and his body goes stiff. He's dead. I actually suspect he died in the bath, and the ensuing convulsions resulted from background electrical activity. Think about a lizard tail that's dropped--it flips around for up to an hour after it's separated from the body.

So here's my question: What the heck happened? And don't say metabolic bone disease (MBD) because he's a fat, active, healthy gecko aside from this impaction, which I suspect wasn't more than a week old. Any ideas? I'm sad, but I'm also just plain curious. I'm suspecting a heart attack or a stroke, but can lizards get heart attacks and strokes?

He Longs to Kill

Raptor Lewis was asking about my gecko(s) in a previous post, so I thought it was high time to take some pictures. Here's Solid, my only remaining leopard gecko (Mr. Fat died a few months after Liquid--old age). He's also the biggest and most aggressive leopard I've ever had. I imagine he's male.





Be on the lookout for pictures of my wonder gecko, Big Boss!

Blogobituary

Sable, 12 or 13, was put down at the vet tonight. She died, like Liquid, from a whole bunch of things: cancer, terrible arthritis, and the beginnings of liver disease. She'd also been almost completely blind for about a year. It became more and more painful to see her limp around the house and develop a very throaty pant (which is indicitive of pain). I can't help but wonder if she knew the end was coming--she wasn't eating as much these last few days, and stayed outside much longer than usual, just laying in her dirt patch. After the deed was done, the vet made an impression of her front paw in clay, which is nice.

For my wife, Sable was the best dog in the world, and she was very close to Sable. Sable herself was very independant and didn't necessarily see us as her owners as much as people she lived with. The second treats were made available next door, she probably would have easily lived with our neighbors without skipping a beat. But she loved walks and head-scratches, and we'll both miss her terribly.

Sable is survived by her roommate, Ozzie, and the humans who loved her very much.

Blogobituary

Liquid Gecko (right), four, died last week of systemic infections that may have included cancer. Both eyes were horribly infected with green pus and a tumor-like growth appeared behind his left eye. Minor sugery to the area revealed nothing inside but white tissue. He may have also been compacted, but it's hard to tell. I put the poor lizard down by refrigerating him for a half hour, then moving him up to the freezer. He hadn't eaten in months and was visibly declining. I suspect he was days from death when I "helped him along," but I didn't want him to suffer any more. He is survived by his brother, Solid (center) and his cousin, Mr. Fat (left).

His corpse was buried in the backyard and marked with a paint stiring stick. Hopefully his body will have skeletized by next summer. The one good thing to come out of the saddness is that I'm no longer losing sleep worrying about the little guy.

In times like this, I find myself selfishly hoping Liquid is going to some abstract "better place." That Big Terrerium in the Sky, as it were. It's useless to speculate on some higher plane, however. I suspect that humanity creates afterlife myths to comfort the living and remember the dead, but the reality may very well be that we become the very dirt we were born from. Those with unshakable faith know that white clouds and angel wings await them beyond death, but I have no such luxury. Death is hard for me, not only because I will miss the individual who I've lost, but because I worry about what it means for me. I cannot, and will not, entertain ideas of an afterlife of which there is no physical evidence. I may as well waste my time hoping dragons exist. Maybe they do, but until one is found, I'm going to worry about more worthwhile endeavors.

The bad news? We may...probably will...lose Sable tomorrow, too.

Eye Boogers

Those who've been following my Facebook updates know that my youngest* leopard gecko, Liquid, has been battling a pretty horrible eye infection. The area directly behind his eye is swollen, mostly likely as a result of the gunk that's building up behind his eyelid. He generally keeps his eye closed, though not voluntarily. This gunk hardens quickly upon touching air, so his lid is closed because it's glued closed. Removing the obstruction (with my tweezers) immediately allows him to open his eye. But he can't actually see because of the greenish-white gunk that's in front of the eye itself. This last weekend, I set about construction a crude gunk-sucking contraption: basically a bulb attached to the glass part of a small eyedropper, with the intention of sticking the eyedropper end into his eye and sucking out as much gunk as possible.

You'd be surprised how difficult this task is on a fidgity leopard gecko. He was not amused, but I did manage to remove a little bit of junk from his eye. He still can't see, though. There's a lot of gunk.

Anyway, something really strange happened last night. I checked on him, and greenish gunk was sticking out of his eyelid. I grabbed the tweezers and pulled out a glob of sticky green stuff that was easily the size of his eye. In fact, I worry that the green glob was the remains of his eye, it having been ravanged by an infection for a month now. Since pulling out that nasty gunk (it just slid right out), he hasn't opened that eye. I hope his eye is still in there. My hope is that he starts eating, because he's lost his appetite and he's losing weight.

As squirmy as he is, though, I know that Liquid is happy to get anything out of his eye, even if it's uncomfortable at the time. Considering how Solid would react to me poking around his head, Liquid is ridiculously relaxed, so he must know it's benefitial. My biggest worry is that I'm doing more harm than good, but getting that giant glob out is definately a step in the right direction.

He has eye antibiotics, but I can't very well give them to him until his eye is cleared out.

*Saying he's the "youngest" isn't really correct because Solid is the same age. Liquid, though, is the smallest of the three leopards, so he's the baby of the trio.

Little Campbell Lake

I got home too late for the really good pictures--where the sun is just dipping below the mountains, but I don't think these are too bad.

Our house in the winter. The snow, in places, has risen above our meager front porch. There's a significant "hump" at the front of the driveway where the snow is more frozen. In the last week, the temperatures have dipped well below zero (it's -12 sometimes in the morning) and climb as high as...um...10 above. Walking the dog is a chore!

This is the main road past our house. There are streetlights, but they have an annoying habit of turning OFF as you approach them, so walking the dog after 6 o'clock requires a flashlight and lots of treats for when cars approach! The snowbirm I'm standing on is probably four feet high at this point. Somebody's been skiing on it.

This is Little Campbell Lake. Houses surround it, and most of the owners also have floatplanes, which sit at docks in the water. When the sun is right above the mountains, it's a beautiful sight! When I took these pictures it was probably 7 degrees. Sable doesn't seem to mind the temperatures at all--walks are her favorite thing in the whole wide world! Somebody was kind enough to plow a bit ski trail all around the lake, which I intend to make use of one of these days.

Big Boss, my frog-eyed gecko, would rather stay inside on his log. It's 80 degrees in HIS house. Must be nice!

Blogobituary: Eldridge the Chameleon, July-November, 2007

Mr. Eldridge the Chameleon, a mere six months old, died Friday night of a baterial gut infection. He is survived by his three leopard gecko friends, Liquid, Solid, and Mr. Fat. At the beginning of October, Eldridge stopped eating, ignoring and at times moving away from available food sources. Despite constant prodding by his owners, Eldridge began to deteriorate. I took him into the vet a few weeks ago, and the herp specialist believed that he had a bacterial infection, probably since before we bought him. He suggested I feed Eldridge baby food and get a stool sample. Although he ate a lot of baby food in the next two weeks, Eldridge did not seem to produce any fecal matter, and if he did, I was not home when he did his business (only a fresh sample would do).


Thusly, Eldridge died from a combination of starvation and gut infection. I would later learn thatn chameleons in general are very difficult to care for, and are prone to many kinds of infection, especially early in their lives. I had an adult Jackson chameleon for several years (this was a long time ago), and I got him when he was three, and he died when he was six. The average lifespan of male Jacksons is five. Although I was reluctant to buy another lizard from the pet store (might it also have an infection?), I purchase a frog-eyed gecko today from a different, newer pet store (Petzoo). He looks very healthy (and weird) and fits comfortably in Eldridge's old tank, albeit with changes to the environment.


I wanted to salvage Eldridge's skull, but he was so tiny that his bones would have boiled away with the meat. He ended up being put in the garage trash can. :-(


While this is not a picture of the new gecko itself (which I named Big Boss), it is a picture of a frog-eyed gecko.

Frog-eyes are burrowing geckos, and look like a transitional form between wall-crawling geckos and leopard geckos. Like the latter, frog-eyes have no laminae on their toes but instead posess sharp claws. They are burrowing lizards (moreso than leopards) and tend to have the spotted pattern which is so unique to leopard geckos. Their scales overlap, leading to concerns that a sandy substrate could get stuck between their scales. I've read conflicting reports, so bought a small bag of quartz sand for a base layer, and wood chips for an upper layer. He seems to like the quartz sand. Unlike leopard geckos, but like wall-crawlers, frog-eyes lack eyelids and have un-segmented tails. Frog-eyes are comical thanks to their oversized, cone-shaped heads.

Apparently, frog-eyes should not be handled very often, as their scales easily pop off and they become prone to infection (again with the infections!). Leopards have interconnecting scales and are basically smooth-skinned. In all my years with my leopards, I have never seen them cut or injured. Frog-eyes also have a reputation (on the interweb anyway) for being aggressive and difficult to tame. We'll see about that!

One Last Meme, For the Road...

What? No paleo posts? No, dear reader, Brian Switek has again tagged to for a meme. This one is interesting, though (aren't they all?). It's animal-related, and it gives me an excuse to post pictures of all my pets! We'll start with Sable, our Heinz-57 mutt of a dog. Everybody has an opinion on what breed(s) she is, and German Shepard is always one of the possibilities. Gina (my wife) is convinced that she has some Alaskan Malamute in her, but who knows. She never barks or whines, but she loves getting into the trash and taking walks. She's very submissive, though, and likes ear scratches. We've had Sable for three years, I think.

What is the most interesting animal you've had?

My cute little leopard geckos! Despite being a tad blurry, this picture is better than the "top-down" view of the alternative, because it shows their bulk better. Solid is trying crawl out, Liquid is heading in his direction, and Mr. Fat still hasn't figured out that I put him in a tubberware. Mr. Fat is ten years old, and his original companion, Little Gecko, died at the tender age of five (he had backwards elbows). After I graduated from college and my wife and I moved into a two-bedroom apartment, Mr. Fat left my parent's house, and I got him a colleague, Baby. Baby turned out to be defective, as he grew scale over his eyes and never grew. Also, Catsby (see below) got ahold of him, so he didn't last long.

Luckily, leopard geckos went on sale a few weeks later at PetCo, and I hand-picked Solid and Liquid, who are just a year old and have already gotten as large as Mr. Fat. The two youngsters haven't become fat enough to become as lethargic as Mr. Fat, so they're a bit more difficult to handle. Still, all three of them are endlessly entertaining, and they all have very distinct personalities. Leopards can live 20+ years, too, so they'll be with me for awhile!

An interesting animal I ate:

Well, like Julia, I've eaten frog legs. That's about as adventurous I get, though. She's right--they taste like chicken legs. I guess I ate crawfish one time, by accident, because they were in a very yummy batch of gumbo. Crawfish taste like shrimp, really, but they're bigger. Generally, if something doesn't look mouth-wateringly delicious to me, I don't remember it later. The picture above, however, is my pet Jackson Chameleon, Eldridge. It's difficult to get a clear photo of such a small beastie, but don't let his miniscule looks fool you--the little bugger's strong! He will grab onto my finger with such determination that even being upside-down will not intimidate him. While charming, this can also be frustrating, especially when trying to put Eldridge back in his terrarium. He's very picky about his footholds, and it takes him several minutes to determine whether his new landing spot is sufficient or not. He is apparently a small breed of Jackson, so he'll double in size in the next year and that'll be it.

I had another Jackson, a full-size big old adult named Darwin (see now where "Eldridge" comes from?) who was irritable and fussy. I got him when he was an adult, and he lived with me for two or so years. I like chameleons--they are endlessly fascinating!

An interesting animal in a museum:

Haven't been to Tyrrell in several years--otherwise I'd name something off that list. I guess I'll go with the Herrerasaurus mount at the Chicago Field Museum. I like it more than Sue, because I've seen Sue three times and, frankly, I don't like the mount. But the Herrerasaurus mount is great because it meets you at the front of the dinosaur hall. There's the skeleton, and then a life model behind it. I didn't realize until I saw the skeleton first-hand how large Herrerasaurus was, so that was neat. I also like their new Buitreraptor skeleton, although it's quite fragmentary. It's standing under a big Deinonychus mount which looks a lot different, now that I think about it, from the picture Brian posted awhile back. It's an older cast, with a more sloped forehead. Old-school Deinonychus. Okay, there was also an awesome Majungatholus skull, and I didn't realize how small that abelisaur is. So that's my overly-long answer.

Above, we have Catsby, our first cat. Her name stems not immediately from The Great Gatsby, but instead from Penny Arcade where, once a year, Gabe draws a Twisp & Catsby cartoon which is devilishly abstract and funny. Catsby in Penny Arcade is named after Gatsby, so it works itself out. Catsby is the most laid-back cat I've ever known. Whereas most cats try to claw at you when you pet their bellies, Catsby could care less. She likes pets anywhere, and she also likes licking you to death. She's obnoxiously vocal, especially when she knows it's dinnertime, and she has this wierd tail twitch when she's anxious about something.

We've had Catsby for probably two years, and she's the perfect cat for us. She and Sable have an understanding--if Catsby must, for some reason, pass in front of Sable, Sable will look away or else get hissed at. It is wonderfully funny how submissive Sable is to little Catsby, especially considering that our big 80-pound dog could eat Catsby if she so chose. Catsby now has an arch-enemy, however.

An interesting thing you did with or to an animal:

Alright, this is easy: I dissected a magpie with dental tools. Magpies are of the corvid family and are very pretty birds. They are mostly a blackish blue with a white underbelly. They're real squackers, and they get their name from their distinctive three-beat call: "Mag-mag-mag." Magpies are also quite intelligent and make food caches and torture my parent's golden retriever (oooh, so close, you dumb dog! Ha-ha-ha!). Anyway, one time my mom found a dead magpie in the backyard, and asked if I wanted it. HELL YES! I planned on gutting it, cleaning the bones, and mounting the tiny little skeleton for a bird exhibit at the Alaska Museum of Natural History. I took the corpse back to my first apartment along with some dental tools from my dad's workshop and began a-pluckin'.

Dissecting a magpie is not easy. The bones are very thin and brittle, and if you pull a piece of meat away too hard or at the wrong angle, you'll snap the bone. After I've succeeded in getting the majority of the meat and feathers off of one side of the bird, and all the internal organs out, I noticed the next day that grubs were writhing in the creature's ribcage. I washed the thing out with a dental pick and elected to take the dead magpie to my parent's backyard, where carnivorous insects would surely pick the bones clean for me.

Well, they did, but the midday sun ruined the experience. The next day, the sunny-side up half of the magpie was cracked and dried. It was like magpie beef jerky. The grass-down side, though, was goopy and rotting. So much for that plan--the magpie went in the trash can that day. However, before this project, I had successfully taken a meaty timber wolf head and baked pig cranium and make them both into museum-quality skulls. It took some work (water picks work great for getting rid of brains!), but I'm very proud of those two skulls.

Catsby's nemesis is Gizmo, above. We've had Gizmo for a week now, and the two simply don't get along. This is funny, because Gizmo could care less about Sable, but Catsby makes her back stand straight up. Both cats are very aggressive toward one another, and you can always tell when they're in the same room because Gizmo will start growling and Catsby will be whipping her tail around, ready to strike. Today, while at work, Gizmo somehow managed to knock down the child-proof (but not cat-proof) gate which was quarentining her in the office, but somehow she and Catsby hadn't killed each other. I suppose this is a good thing. I love Gizmo, and she's a very different cat--she doesn't meow (or even mew), she doesn't like belly rubs, and she headbutts things. Like, seriously, she comes toward you head-first like some kind of pachycephalocat.

An interesting animal in its natural habitat:

I could sit and watch moose all day. We have giant, McLarge-Huge moose up here, and in fact an enormous bull with a huge rack of antlers was wandering our streets two nights ago. Moose who frequent neighborhoods are generally used to people and dogs, but you don't want to provoke them, so I find it best to take a different route when faced with a moose near the road. I also love watching bears, but seeing a bear is incredibly rare in Anchorage. You have to go to Kodiak for that. But my favorite? I guess I like watching waterbirds the best. We get lots of ducks and geese up here, and grebes. The way they all interact is very funny, and they're just so pretty. I'll say waterbirds.

I'll take...um...Will, Sarda, Matt, and Ann-Marie from here.