Matthew
We’ve been following news closely from NASA this morning about an unexpected discovery from the Mars Curiosity Rover. Before this morning only blurry pictures had been captured, so we hesitated to report any news.
Now, we’ve seen the first clear picture. We can finally say it. We’re not alone. There is life in our universe. What kind of life? Life covered in scales. Life that survives in the harshest conditions.
Here are the first photos captured of the new lizard from Mars:
Lead photo credit, article photos linked with credit.
My lepord gecko won’t eat anything but crickets have tried meal worms and hoppers but
He just won’t touch them how can I vary his diet ??
Well, I could never vary my kids’ diets when they were young, so good luck. Keep offering and see if it changes its mind. Many leopard geckos who are used to crickets aren’t so interested in mealworms. Superworms move more and are more interesting to them. They also often like silkworms or hornworms.
It is tricky to change a leopard gecko’s diet, but it can be done.
You have to slowly introduce mealworms mixed in with a few fatty waxworm treats will do the trick.
I had the same issue with my leopard gecko, what I did is give he a waxworm, and then 1 or two mealworms, and repeat process. It took couple once a week feedings to switch her over to mealworms only, when I notice she ate one mealworm after another, that is when I stopped the waxworms all together.
I hate crickets, they are smelly and die too fast which is a waste of money plus the pet store are sometimes out of them for weeks.
The only medium the mealworms need is organic old fashioned steel cut rolled oats (not the instant, that has chemicals, artificial and preservatives).
You can keep mealworms in the fridge in the bottom crisper drawer , they’ll be fine.
Change the medium every 3 months to avoid mold and moisture accumulation.
Another good source of high calcium is Phoenix worms.
Phoenix worms are clean, meaning they don’t have other parasites.
Dubia Roaches, is another nutritious food source. They are nothing like the cockroaches that we see scurrying around. Dubia Roaches are clean meaning they don’t carry disease or parasites.
When buying mealworms, get the small, it is better for you control their growth to the size you need by keeping the container out in room temperature for 4 to 6 days so they can eat and refrigerate to slow their growth. Be careful, they can turn into mealy beetles, unless you want to try to breed your own food for your Leo.
Silkworms are great, but they are hard to keep alive to feed your gecko. If any moisture gets into their container, they wind up dying and moldy, so, avoid them as with butterworms and hornworms (the juices can be a bit irritating to a leopard gecko)
Don’t buy the giant (treated with hormones/chemicals to keep them from pupating into beetles) or super worms, they are a different species of mealworms altogether, they pinch bad leaving a mark that is painful.
Reputable sellers I deal with:
georgiacrickets.com
mulberryfarms.com
I raised my leopard gecko since 3 months, rescued from a death trap of a pet store that uses sand. I took her to an exotic vet that deals with reptiles and found my leo was impact and could have died if I didn’t bring her in at all. Today she is a healthy, vibrant 4 year old.
That sounded cool, but the captions for the picture says: Thorny Devil in Kalbarri National Park, Australia. Another proof you should be wary of what you read on internet…
I don’t belive a one-insect diet is good for any insectivore. I would use crickets, cockroaches etc for variety from time to time still. Geckos should also have the opportunity to hunt faster insects, it would give them more stimulation.
ps. If leopard geckos are adapted for harsh conditions and able to eat scorpions, beetles etc, then what is the harm with feeding mealworm beetles?
No harm at all, they just tend not to eat them. Now that we know there’s water on Mars I’m sure we’ll find scorpions and other stuff along with the geckos there.
The australian desert is somewhat like Mars. A bearded dragon would fit right in as well.
Imagine a little lizard getting lost in a foreign planet after an accident of a hypothetical future experiment mission. Not good.