<![CDATA[ Silver Apple Exotics - Blog]]>Wed, 03 Jun 2026 12:41:26 -0700Weebly<![CDATA[Captive care: natural habitat vs natural history]]>Tue, 02 Jun 2026 20:36:36 GMThttps://www.silverappleexotics.com/blog/june-02nd-2026One of the more high-profile reptile care sheet style websites claims that reptiles “need the elements of their natural habitat. Each species of reptile evolved slowly over the course of literally millions of years to thrive within a very specific habitat, utilizing everything that habitat had to offer in order to maximize their chances of survival. My research has led me to conclude that re-creating the conditions of each reptile’s natural habitat (light, temperatures, humidity, shelters, plants, etc.) and supplementing that with enrichment is the key to promoting optimal physical and mental welfare for reptiles in captivity. (bolded text in the original)” 

I’d like to leave to the side, just for now, some of the most easily denied claims here: 

  • that “each species of reptile evolved slowly over the course of literally millions of years” (often enough, speciation events follow rapidly on environmental change or reproductive isolation),
  • that each species “thrives” in “a very specific habitat” (some of the most popular captive herp species are habitat generalists, and this is closely related to why they’re popular),
  • and that a species would be “utilizing everything that habitat had to offer in order to maximize their chances of survival” (which ignores that adaptations often serve to protect a species against harms from elements of their natural environment rather than exploiting benefits, and also that each species gets direct benefit from a small fraction of the elements of a habitat).


Though these misunderstandings about evolution and adaptation are interesting and important, I’ll save them for another day. 

But I would like to press on the idea that “re-creating the conditions of each reptile’s natural habitat (light, temperatures, humidity, shelters, plants, etc.)” is the best way to think about providing for a species’ needs in captivity.  

I’d like to do this by contrasting the above claims with one of the more interesting journal articles I've stumbled across lately (though it is five years old at this point): ‘Utilization of Natural History Information in Evidence based Herpetoculture: A Proposed Protocol and Case Study with Hydrodynastes gigas (False Water Cobra)’.

The author -- Zac Loughman -- talks about captive herp care at the most zoomed-out scale, and notes that "A review of 1980s and 1990s herpetocultural literature indicates that for many species a set husbandry norm was applied to entire taxonomic groups, becoming husbandry dogma. A spectrum from minimalist approaches of early zoos and select private hobbyists to naturalistic designs promoted by Bateman and another group of private hobbyists existed in these guides. Diversity in temperatures, food types, enclosure types, and other husbandry attributes often were lacking." Interesting how the early "naturalistic designs" genus is in the 'generic dogma' family (as it is now too, in my estimation).

Lately, Loughman says, "“Care sheets” and in the last 10 years short care videos have proliferated on the internet in response to amphibian and reptile popularity, and often serve as the primary source of information for most reptile and amphibian keepers and entry level herpetoculturalists." These guidelines tend to be "monotypic and simplistic in nature”.

The author asks "Should information used to develop husbandry techniques be the result of careful scientific study of amphibians and reptiles while in human care? One could argue not necessarily, given anthropogenic environments are not where the species in question evolved, and therefore they should not set the precedence for husbandry" -- i.e. "works for me" isn't the final word on care. 
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Another option for making captive care decisions is that "husbandry attributes associated with herpetocultural practice should then be driven by observations and investigations in nature, where the species in question occurs naturally and evolved." He suggests these aspects of species' natural history outlined by George A Bartholomew be used to determine captive care practices:
Picture
From these, we can provide the most appropriate enclosure type and dimensions, along with space requirements that "encourage natural behaviors"; substrate and hardscape layout; lighting; thermal gradients; seasonal cycles; etc. Those are just the most relevant (to our purposes here) examples the author listed, but there are a bunch more details that are specifically and centrally interesting to the care of certain species, for example captive sex ratios.

So far this all might sound a bit similar to the idea that “re-creating the conditions of each reptile’s natural habitat (light, temperatures, humidity, shelters, plants, etc.)” is the best way to approach care.  But importantly, Loughman he doesn't just recommend looking to, for example, the temperatures in a species' natural habitat but instead appeals to that species' "thermal needs" (which may be different than the particular air temp of its natural habitat). Similarly "water needs" as opposed to whether water happens to be present in the species' natural habitat. 

Further, he considers many aspects of a species that aren’t simply elements of its natural habitat, such as their reproductive behaviors (fecundity and parity) and changes in habitat needs over the course of its life (ontogenic shifts in ecology).  These aspects of a species have important implications for its captive care but are not a matter of simply recreating its natural habitat.

Loughman gives a range of criteria on which a husbandry protocol might be judged, and it is all pretty familiar stuff but well worth mentioning: "neonate/juvenile growth, stable weights in adults, behavioral responses to their environment", and on the negative side "lack of activity, specifically typical thermoregulatory, stylized inter-individual, and lack of foraging and hydration behaviors". Basically: if they grow well and act in ways that we'd expect from their wild counterparts, that's a good sign.

One interesting reminder he makes on this matter is that "understanding what constitute(s) “normal” behavior is both a byproduct of research and experiences with the species in question”, which suggests that making care recommendations after (merely) online or similar “research” is not sufficient in the absence of experience with the species in question.  That is to say, if you haven’t kept a species, you likely don’t know what to look for in evaluating the effects of care on it.  As an illustration, one example in which both these elements (research and experience) play a role in interpreting behavior is ‘digging’ behavior in captivity: keepers might note that a species digs frequently in certain captive conditions and too often simply take that to indicate that the species is “fossorial”, when in fact this is often an artifact of captivity and so not necessarily best accommodated with deeper substrate, but rather by figuring out why the animal is acting so oddly (an animal that is 'fossorial' has physical adaptations for digging, and also uses those adaptive traits to dig).

Do yourself and your animals a favor, and read Loughman’s paper to get a first hand account of it.  Then, rather than depending on the recommendations of armchair experts, seek out experienced keepers of the species you’re considering caring for — and ideally these keepers would have experience keeping and breeding the species, since aspects of reproductive biology matter even to animals that are kept only as pets and never bred — to get advice based on first hand knowledge.  Then integrate that advice with facts you find from a deep dive into what’s known about the natural history of the species in journal articles (not whatever comes up on a general web search).

https://reptifiles.com/about/
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https://scholar.google.com/

Utilization of Natural History Information in Evidence based Herpetoculture: A Proposed Protocol and Case Study with Hydrodynastes gigas (False Water Cobra), Zachary J. Loughman, Animals 2020, 10(11), 2021; https://doi.org/10.3390/ani10112021

Wollenberg Valero KC, Marshall JC, Bastiaans E, Caccone A, Camargo A, Morando M, Niemiller ML, Pabijan M, Russello MA, Sinervo B, et al. Patterns, Mechanisms and Genetics of Speciation in Reptiles and Amphibians. Genes. 2019; 10(9):646. https://doi.org/10.3390/genes10090646 
]]><![CDATA[Spotlight on trafficked herps: Adelphobates galactonotus ‘Blue’]]>Sun, 17 May 2026 20:06:38 GMThttps://www.silverappleexotics.com/blog/spotlight-on-trafficked-herps-adelphobates-galactonotus-blueA couple blog posts ago, I wrote this about trafficked herps:

“Some species are relatively easy to determine to be trafficked.  For example, if you see a captive specimen of herp endemic to Australia, you can be 99% certain that it or its progenitors were trafficked, since Australia doesn’t export herps for commercial purposes (with about a half dozen isolated exceptions that have yet to include any gecko or bearded dragon species).”

Another factor that makes it easier to determine if a species is trafficked is if it is CITES listed.  CITES — the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora — is an international treaty that regulates and records international trade in listed species.  If a species is listed but no CITES records of trade exist, then it can be known that examples of that species outside its native range state isn’t there legitimately.

One problem with this method is that some species may have been traded before they were CITES listed.  But when a new morph of an existing listed species is discovered, then every example of that morph that is legitimately traded internationally will have a dated record of that trade.  Or there won’t be such a record of legal trade — as is the case with Adelphobates galactonotus ‘Blue’.

The Blue morph of Adelphobates galactonotus was discovered in the wild in Brazil (to which country the species is endemic) in 2012.  According to Devin Edmonds, this morph was smuggled to Europe “first in the early-mid 2010s”.  Supposedly some were “confiscated by authorities” and “distributed to zoological institutions, which then bred the confiscated frogs and released offspring to European private collectors.”

Adelphobates galactonotus has been CITES listed (Appendix II) since 1987. If trafficked CITES listed animals were intercepted coming into a country, they would need a CITES permit to have left the range country (in this case, Brazil) legally.

There is no such permit on record in the early-mid 2010s.  If European authorities turned these frogs over to zoos, they were directly taking part in laundering them into captivity (as would the zoos that bred and distributed them further).  But another reasonable explanation of how these frogs got into captivity in Europe would be, of course, that they were simply smuggled there with no help from authorities.  That is: without documentation, the account involving the approval of authorities is best interpreted as fiction.

There is actually a relevant example of international trade of this morph recorded, though in 2017.  In this year, roughly 60 A. galactonotus were confiscated entering the US from the Netherlands with a CITES permit from the Netherlands.  The problem was that some of the frogs were the ‘Blue’ morph, which US import inspectors knew to have never been exported legally from Brazil.  The shipment was confiscated, and noted as such in permit records. (The frogs were held in the US and eventually repatriated to Brazil, again with a CITES permit.)

But this is the extent of permitted trade in A. galactonotus ‘Blue’.  Any other specimens in the US were imported with inaccurate and deceptive permits — AKA ‘laundered’ — or smuggled in some way (‘brown boxed’, or otherwise brought into the US with no permit at all).

About many trafficked herps we can only be 99% certain that they’re trafficked — but with an animal like Adelphobates galactonotus ‘Blue’, we can be 100% certain that none outside Brazil are there legitimately.  Hopefully, that makes them easy to refuse to buy.



https://medium.com/usfws/rare-splash-backed-poison-frogs-are-anything-but-blue-as-they-fly-home-to-brazil-f280bc469303 (https://web.archive.org/web/20240626195521/https://medium.com/usfws/rare-splash-backed-poison-frogs-are-anything-but-blue-as-they-fly-home-to-brazil-f280bc469303)






]]><![CDATA[Is husbandry best approached as details or holistically?]]>Fri, 24 Apr 2026 19:24:50 GMThttps://www.silverappleexotics.com/blog/is-husbandry-best-approached-as-details-or-holisticallyYou may have noticed a decrease in discussions of piece-meal, basic care requirements — enclosure size, temperatures and humidity levels, substrate options, all kept relatively simple — and an increased focus on various approaches to husbandry that are more holistic, or emphasize enrichment — bioactive approaches are the most notable development here, but the rise of “kits” tailored to specific herps is certainly related.

Hold onto that distinction between simple itemized care and holistic enriched care for a minute; I want to talk about it in a bit of a roundabout way.

A recent research article in the journal Applied Animal Behaviour Science “compared the effects of housing conditions (Standard vs. Enriched) on the behaviour and welfare of captive leopard geckos (Eublepharis macularius).” 

Six leopard geckos were each housed singly for four weeks in each of the following enclosures:

Standard — vivariums contained a small rock hide, a small water bowl that the animals could not submerge in, a newspaper substrate, and a calcium bowl. 

Enriched Non-naturalistic — vivariums had four different hides, including one hanging hide and a moist hide, a large water bowl big enough to submerge in, fake plants (three types), and a calcium bowl. The substrate was a “topsoil” (actually, Arcadia bioactive mix and coco fiber) x sand mixture. 

Enriched Naturalistic — these vivariums were identical to the Non- Naturalistic condition except that they contained live invertebrates to break down the matter (Collembola spp springtails, Trichorina dwarf isopods and Porcellio sp isopods, Mealworms, small and giant lob worms) and real plants (seven species).  This design is exactly what would be called “bioactive” in many hobby groups.

Each were wooden vivariums with sliding glass fronts (L61 x D46 x H46cm; 24 x 18 x 18 inches), with a ceramic heater thermostatically controlled to create a basking spot of 31C (88F), and a 2% UVB lamp running 12 hours per day.  There is no mention of any supplementation aside from the free choice calcium and UVB — that is, there is no note that any Vitamin A was provided, but the geckos were fed exclusively locusts which are one of the few feeder insects with possibly sufficient levels of Vitamin A.  There is no note of whether the plants in the Enriched Naturalistic enclosures were watered; this might be relevant to the RH and substrate moisture levels in the enclosures, which were not noted and apparently not measured.

The researchers found that geckos with a larger water bowl available would soak in it, whereas with a smaller water bowl they would try to soak but be unable to because they didn’t fit in the bowl.  The researchers write that “This suggests that they were highly motivated to perform this behaviour and that thwarting this need would likely compromise welfare.“ It was also noted that the small bowl condition led to more water being drunk.  

In the Enriched enclosures, the geckos used all the elements (rotated between all the hides, for example), though the geckos did not hide, move or eat more or less in any of the enclosure types.
More of the geckos’ time was spent in wall climbing and other escape/boredom behaviors in the Standard enclosures, “possibly due to a lack of stimulation within their home environment.”
But they found that “No significant differences existed between the Non-naturalistic and Naturalistic conditions in any of the behaviours, including enrichment-specific behaviours that could only be exhibited within the Enriched conditions.” That is to say, there was no difference in behaviors between the Naturalistic and Non-naturalistic enclosures.  

At the end of each gecko’s three month experience, each was given a “preference test”, which  “consisted of the animal being given access to three connected vivariums, each replicating one of the housing conditions”. It was found that the geckos spent more time in the Enriched Naturalistic section — roughly 75% of their total time.  This was taken to indicate that the geckos preferred that enclosure design over the others (this is a standard way to discover animals’ preferences; I can’t think of a better way, really).

Those are the facts the researchers reported.  They also drew at least two evaluative conclusions: 
“(W)e recommend keeping leopard geckos in Enriched enclosures of at least 46 cm in height. These should contain a range of shelters/hides, climbing opportunities, and a water bowl sufficiently large to immerse themselves in fully.” 

“The preference test revealed a strong preference for the Naturalistic environment; therefore, naturalistic features (e.g., live plants, live invertebrates) should be incorporated where possible.”
It is worth observing that the study didn’t compare enclosure dimensions, so any recommendation on this topic is not supported by their specific findings.   

One fact that’s obvious is that the Standard enclosure was simply completely inadequate; it did not even contain a moist hide.  That the geckos exhibited escape behaviors from a plainly bad enclosure does not need empirical research to explain.  That geckos with no moist hide would drink more water is not unexpected, and no appeal to a larger water bowl is needed.

The Enriched Non-naturalistic enclosure did have a moist hide, and also wasn’t simply bare bones.  It is not surprising that the geckos behaviors were less troubling in such an enclosure; what is surprising is that the researchers didn’t take this enclosure as the baseline, since it is a pretty basic setup per established practices.

Published accounts of leopard geckos natural history notes that they are most likely to come out of hiding at RH of 70-80%.  This might be taken to suggest that that is the RH that leopard geckos prefer, and would explain the soaking behavior in the larger water bowl in the Enriched enclosure (I have kept scores of leopard geckos and never seen one attempt to soak).  This moisture preference is the obvious reason the study subjects preferred the Enriched Naturalistic enclosures; an enclosure with live plants is, ceteris paribus, going to be more humid than one without.  

Their preference is not necessarily for live plants themselves (which are few and far between in much of their natural habitat).  This preference is certainly not for substrate microfauna, unless of course the geckos were eating some of the larger species; this would be a preference more for a varied diet than supposedly waste-consuming microfauna, which need not be tied to a bioactive methodology.  This finding of leopard geckos’ preference was a very complicated and misleading way to show that leopard geckos appreciate more moisture than they’re often given in captivity.

The point here is not simply to call out a published study of embarrassingly poor design (though it is that).  The point here is that we don’t need research to figure out that leopard geckos shouldn’t be kept in bare boxes, nor do we need any sort of holistic approach like so-called bioactive enclosures to provide for geckos’ — or any herps’ — needs.  We can continue to figure out what specific needs our herps have and provide for those needs without buying a “kit” made of stuff or ideas some marketer is selling.


Khan, Muhammad S. Natural history and biology of hobbyist choice leopard gecko.
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Rickman, Erin L. et al. The impact of enriched housing on the behaviour and welfare of captive leopard geckos (Eublepharis macularius).  Applied Animal Behaviour Science Volume 283, February 2025.]]><![CDATA[Adaptive traits — does ‘can’ imply ‘should’?]]>Tue, 31 Mar 2026 18:30:16 GMThttps://www.silverappleexotics.com/blog/adaptive-traits-does-can-imply-shouldHerps have many interesting adaptive traits.  Consider the heat sensing facial pits of some pythons, such as Python regius, the Royal python (yes, the British common name is the better one).  Royal pythons sense the body heat of the warm blooded prey they hunt, and use that sense in order to strike more accurately and thus hunt more successfully.  It doesn’t work on cool dead prey, of course, and isn’t at all necessary for striking warm dead prey.  But Royal pythons are clearly adapted for hunting live rodents and birds.

Another adaptive trait is the ability to manufacture Vitamin D from ultraviolet light, specifically UVB (though UVA plays a huge role in the process, which is a tangent best taken up in another post).  Most herps that have been studied have been found to have this ability, at least to some degree (except, coincidentally, Royal pythons).  It isn’t necessary for a herp to make their own Vitamin D if they can ingest and metabolize Vitamin D and their diet contains it (whether naturally as in rodents or supplemented by the keeper as with insectivores), but many herps can use both oral and UVB-derived Vitamin D.  It seems that many keepers are being convinced to provide UVB for nearly all herps, even those that use oral Vitamin D perfectly well.

Of course, UVB isn’t all good for any animal; it can cause cancer and eye disease, and induces anorexia in captive herps if misused.  It is also expensive (fixtures, a meter, periodic lamp replacement, and electricity)  And the same sorts of things can be said about live prey for Royal pythons — feeding live rodents (and I suppose live birds, though I have not heard of such a practice) carries a serious risk of injury to the python (and possibly suffering of the rodent), and they’re more expensive to buy (and maintain, when the snake refuses a meal).  Current hobby practices seem mostly to discourage feeding live rodents, except in those cases where that’s literally the only prey that a particular snake — or in some cases, a particular species — will accept.

These of course are only two of innumerable examples. Many herps have adaptive traits that help them to swim, to brumate; some to aestivate and even to glide.  The skin of some is adapted to slough off when grasped by a predator.  All have adaptive traits that maximize their reproductive output.

Because a herp has an adaptive trait, the role of which can be provided by other options in captivity or skipped entirely without harm, does that automatically mean that we keepers should promote the herp’s use of that trait?  Why are practices around UVB and live feeding so different in spite of having similar roles in the life of a herp?  


David W. Gardiner, Frances M. Baines, Karamjeet Pandher "Photodermatitis and Photokeratoconjunctivitis in a Ball Python (Python regius) and a Blue-Tongue Skink (Tiliqua spp.)," Journal of Zoo and Wildlife Medicine, 40(4), 757-766, (1 December 2009)

Hedley J, Eatwell K. The effects of UV light on calcium metabolism in ball pythons (Python regius). Vet Rec. 2013 Oct 12;173(14):345.
]]><![CDATA[Milksnake taxonomy]]>Sun, 08 Mar 2026 13:33:06 GMThttps://www.silverappleexotics.com/blog/milksnake-taxonomy

One great thing about science is that as knowledge is gained, it is put to good use to improve science.  Discoveries are made and older understandings are fine-tuned, or corrected, or completely overhauled.  Science makes progress (which is a statement that can be read in at least two ways — can you see them both?).

One challenging thing about these progressive practices is that it makes taxonomy a bit harder to keep up with.  Taxonomy is the classification of living things into, well, taxa: species, genera, and so on in larger and more encompassing groups.  And herp taxonomy has been changing in the last few decades, to some degree because of techniques for classifying animals based on their genetic relationships.  This leads to a reorganization of how we understand which animal belongs to which species, and how those species are related to others.

One recent-ish (2013) major taxonomic revision took place in milksnakes.  There had been one species of milksnake — Lampropeltis triangulum — that contained two dozen subspecies:

abnorma, amaura, andesiana, annulata, arcifera, blanchardi, campbelli, celaenops, conanti, dixoni, gaigae, gentilis, hondurensis, micropholis, multistrata, nelsoni, oligozona, polyzona, sinaloae, stuarti, smithi, syspila, taylori, and triangulum.

Many of these are common in captive collections: L. t. campbelli -- the Pueblan Milksnake; L.t. hondurensis -- the Honduran Milksnake.  Others are not: L.t. smithi, for example.

But as of 2013, there are six species of milksnakes (though be sure to hang on until the end for another interesting twist, since in one sense milksnakes no longer exist at all).  

Lampropeltis abnorma is the species that contains the former L.t. abnorma (Guatemalan Milksnake), L. t. blanchardi (Blanchard’s Milksnake), L.t. hondurensis (Honduran), L.t. oligozona (Pacific American), and L.t. stuarti (Stuart’s).

Lampropeltis annulata contains all the L.t. annulata (Mexican Milksnake) that are not from central Texas, as well as L.t. dixoni (Dixon’s Milksnake).

Lampropeltis gentilis took on many former subspecies: those L.t. amaura (Louisiana Milksnake) from western Texas, southeastern Oklahoma, Louisiana west of the Mississippi River, and southern Arkansas; those L.t. annulata (Mexican Milksnake) from central Texas; L.t. celaenops (New Mexico Milksnake); L.t. gentilis (Central Plains Milksnake); L.t. multistrata (Pale Milksnake); those L.t. syspila (Red Milksnake) from Nebraska, Kansas, and Oklahoma; L.t. taylori (Utah Milksnake)

Lampropeltis polyzona is now the name of a few former subspecies you might know, and a few you likely don’t: L.t. arcifera (Jalisco Milksnake); L.t. campbelli (Pueblan Milksnake); L.t. conanti (Conant’s Milksnake) in part; L.t. nelsoni (Nelson’s Milksnake); L.t. polyzona (Atlantic Central American Milksnake) in part; L.t. sinaloae (Sinaloan Milksnake); L.t. smithi (Smith’s Milksnake).  

Lampropeltis micropholis is the species name of some of the physically largest of the milksnakes: L.t. andesiana (Andean Milksnake); L.t. gaigeae (Black Milksnake); and L.t. micropholis (Ecuadoran Milksnake).

Lampropeltis triangulum is comprised of those L.t. amaura (Louisiana Milksnake) from northeastern Louisiana (specifically La Salle Parish); those L.t. syspila (Red Milksnake) from Alabama, Indiana, Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky, Missouri, Mississippi, Tennessee, and possibly Arkansas north of the Arkansas River; and L.t. triangulum (Eastern Milksnake).

One interesting observation is that some milksnakes that have been (mostly) kept separate in captive breedings are now the same species: Pueblan and Nelson’s Milksnakes, for example, are now all Lampropeltis polyzona.  I’m not sure we have a common name ready for them.

But that’s OK, since we should continue to keep them separate.  Consider that the snake formerly known as Red Milksnake (L.t. syspila) is now split into two species; if a Red Milksnake from, say, Missouri had been crossed with one from Kansas, the offspring would be hybrids.  The fact that taxonomy is always improving provides a reason to breed locale-specific herps whenever possible, and not just to cross two because (we think) they are the same species.

I mentioned that there would be a twist.  Here it is:

Picture
This is a ‘species tree’ that indicates the relations between species.  Look at the middle of the right column: see that L. gentilis and L. annulata derive from a shared point? That means that those two species share a common ancestor with each other — 1.7 million years ago. A little further to the left (back in time), that ancestor shared an earlier ancestor (3 MYA) with L. triangulum.  

The twist is that when we trace back to find the last common ancestor of all the snakes we tend to call ‘Milksnakes’, we find that there are eight species that we usually call ‘Kingsnakes’ attached to the tree”:

L. elapsoides (Scarlet Kingsnake)
L. zonata (California Mountain Kingsnake)
L. knoblochi (Chihuahua Mountain Kingsnake)
L. pyromelana (Arizona Mountain Kingsnake)
L. webbi
L. ruthveni (Ruthven’s Kingsnake)
L. mexicana (Mexican Kingsnake)
L. alterna (Gray Banded Kingsnake)

This means that a group that contains both the Pueblan Milksnake and the Eastern Milksnake also contains the seven kingsnake species listed above.  In scientific terms, milksnakes are “paraphyletic”.   In another way of thinking, milksnakes, like fish, don’t exist.





Ruane, Sara & Bryson Jr, Robert & Pyron, R & Burbrink, Frank. (2013). Coalescent Species Delimitation in Milksnakes (Genus Lampropeltis) and Impacts on Phylogenetic Comparative Analyses. Systematic biology. 63. DOI:10.1093/sysbio/syt099. link to PDF

https://iere.org/do-fish-technically-exist/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Paraphyletic_groups
]]><![CDATA[Spotlight on trafficked herps:  Uroplatus fiera]]>Wed, 18 Feb 2026 00:40:01 GMThttps://www.silverappleexotics.com/blog/spotlight-on-trafficked-herps-uroplatus-fieraMany species of herps are trafficked — that is, they are in captivity only in virtue of some combination of the following:

Smuggling: removing a living thing from its range state without permission from the relevant authority.

Laundering: misidentifying a living thing as to species or origin (place of origin; also whether wild collected or captive bred) in order to acquire permits or other legal requirements to transport or sell it.

Other less clearly categorized elements of trafficking such as marketing and selling of smuggled and/or laundered species or offspring of such species, and promulgating disinformation about these species as to their origin or identification.  

Some species are relatively easy to determine to be trafficked.  For example, if you see a captive specimen of herp endemic to Australia, you can be 99% certain that it or its progenitors were trafficked, since Australia doesn’t export herps for commercial purposes (with about a half dozen isolated exceptions that have yet to include any gecko or bearded dragon species).

Others are harder to determine.  One that is a bit of a complex case is Uroplatus fiera.  This species was first described in 2015; before that, it was considered to be just another example of Uroplatus ebenaui.  U. ebenaui is exported in large numbers from Madagascar (the country to which both these species are endemic), and at least before 2015 could have reasonably been expected to have some U. fiera included in those exports. (Since its scientific description, Uroplatus fiera has never been permitted for export.)

But after 2015, the two species could be distinguished.  Uroplatus fiera grows a bit larger, but more vividly has a completely different color skin on the inside of of its wouth: U. fiera has a typical pink mouth lining, but the mouth of U. ebenaui is jet black inside (there are numerous other differences in scale and lamellae count and hemipene morphology, but the oral color is easy to see at a glance).  

Also, it turns out that the ranges of the two species are different as well.  Uroplatus ebenaui lives in the west and north of the island, in dry lowland forests; U. fiera lives on the east side of the island at intermediate altitudes, and the two ranges are separated by highlands.

These factors — that the two species are easily distinguished by anyone sorting animals for export, and that the range of fiera is well away from that of ebenaui — makes any confusion between the two completely avoidable.  Specimens of Uroplatus fiera currently exported as U. ebenaui are undoubtedly being intentionally laundered.  Importers bringing these mixed ebenaui/fiera shipments into the US are supporting this laundering through their purchases, and are directly and actively undermining conservation of this species.  At this point in time, there’s no reason at all to import wild collected U. ebenaui into the US, as they’re being bred here, and imported from Europe and Ukraine, in sufficient numbers to support hobby demand.

Without documented evidence that a given Uroplatus fiera being offered is derived from animals imported prior to 2015, all U. fiera should be rejected for purchase, as should all wild collected U. ebenaui, which are supporting the laundering of U. fiera.


Gehring, Philip-Sebastian, 2020.  Leaf-Tailed Geckos — the Complete Uroplatus.  Edition Chimaira.

Ratsoavina, Fanomezana & RANJANAHARISOA, FIADANANTSOA & Glaw, Frank & Raselimanana, Achille Philippe & Miralles, Aurélien & Vences, Miguel. (2015). A new leaf-tailed gecko of the Uroplatus ebenaui group (Squamata: Gekkonidae) from Madagascar's central eastern rainforests. Zootaxa. 4006. 143-160. 10.11646/zootaxa.4006.1.7. 


]]><![CDATA[Captive herp populations (part 1)]]>Sun, 08 Feb 2026 21:02:04 GMThttps://www.silverappleexotics.com/blog/captive-herp-populations-part-1Many -- or perhaps most -- people who keep herps don't breed them.  If everyone who did keep herps actively bred them, we might be overrun by captive animals. Or would we?

Consider a species that reproduces regardless of almost anything the keeper does to prevent it: the mourning gecko (Lepidodactylus lugubris).  Mourning geckos lay two eggs at a time (usually), year round every month or two, and do so from about a year old. They're parthenogenic, so they lay eggs whether the keeper intends them to or not. The number of mourning geckos in a population should show exponential growth, unless something happens to remove geckos from the population. 

So, one gecko is one gecko for a year, and then after another year is 11 geckos (conservatively: a clutch every two months, of two eggs each except two of those clutches are singletons), then after another year is 121 geckos, then after another year is 1331 geckos, and so on.

Let's say two mourning geckos are kept captive (we could start with one, but since they're social that wouldn't be very nice, now would it?).  At the end of their lifespan of 10 years, we should expect there to be 4.7 million mourning geckos.  

Well, we might expect them not to breed up until death.  But at the end of five years (one year to become mature, and four years of offspring), there should be 29,000 geckos.  

Perhaps the initial numbers, in spite of looking fairly conservative, were too high.  Suppose each gecko produces half as many offspring as was assumed.  Even with those unrealistically low numbers, our initial two would be almost 2,600 geckos in five years.  Does the overall captive population of mourning geckos increase by 1300 times every five years? I think it does not.

Figuring out why there aren't nearly as many mourning geckos in captivity as expected might not be best done mathematically.  It might be done by considering whether we're keeping mourning geckos in ways that benefit them.  Do we tend to keep them at their optimal temperatures -- that is, to we allow them to bask to maintain a preferred 85F body temperature? Do they, in virtue of being basking thermoregulators, benefit from UVB?  Do they really benefit from being kept with dart frogs? (The answers here, of course, are: no, not usually; yes, possibly; no, definitely not, and neither do the frogs).  

Mourning geckos are just an easy example, since we know exactly how many of them reproduce.  But how many other captive herp species maintain low numbers in captivity for reasons other than their breeding rate?  That is, how much does neglect factor in to population numbers of captive herps?

Werner, Yehuda. Do gravid females of oviparous gekkonid lizards maintain elevated body temperatures? Hemidactylus frenatus and Lepidodactylus lugubris on Oahu, January 1990, Amphibia-Reptilia 11(2):200-204.


]]><![CDATA[A blog? In 2026?]]>Sat, 24 Jan 2026 23:10:24 GMThttps://www.silverappleexotics.com/blog/a-blog-in-2026A blog? In 2026? 

Yes.  Unlike YouTube, Facebook and (very likely; we’ll see soon enough) so-called “AI”, blogs have shown themselves to be fairly harmless as far as technological tools go.  

Short, of course, for ‘weblog’, which Wikipedia tells us was coined by Jorn Barger on December 17, 1997, this nearly 30 year history of no noticeable negative societal impact makes this a pretty safe bet.  Although, Wikipedia also reminds us that tetraethyl lead was first added to auto fuel in the early 1920s and wasn’t effectively recognized as the catastrophe that it is for about 50 years.  So perhaps comfort with this bit of technology is premature.  

But until we figure this out for sure, I’ll offer here short and rough outlines of my thoughts about herpetoculture, and probably about other issues too.  

Today I’m thinking about the common question “What herp should I put in this enclosure that I have?”  This is often, though not always, asked by someone new to herpetoculture.  It usually comes as something of an initial idea search — hoping to elicit a list of candidate species that will “fit” in the enclosure at hand.  

It is a bit like standing in front of the refrigerator, knowing that you’re hungry but not knowing what you’re hungry for.  Once you find that thing, though (cheese, right?), if someone asks why you’re eating cheese, you can say ‘because I was hungry, and cheese fills me up’.

It is also a bit like sitting around with the family and everyone is a bit bored, and so you suggest a game and someone makes a motion that you all play Uno.  Then if someone asks why you’re playing Uno, you can say ‘because we were bored, and Uno is good when you’re bored’.

So, when someone asks why you have a tortoise in an old aquarium, you can say, ‘because I had this old aquarium, and something needed to fill it’.   And the thing about tortoises is, you can give that answer for the rest of your life, since that tortoise will, ideally, outlive you.

Everyone will have different answers to whether cheese is good for filling a vague hunger, or Uno is good for staving off boredom.  I think, though, that a tortoise — or any other herp — has value over and above just filling an old aquarium.  

And I also think it is possible to tell something about a keeper by the factors that play a role in their choice of what herp to keep — perhaps the species is intellectually engaging, or has a friendly community of keepers associated with it, or is beautiful beyond compare, or is just a cute ray of sunshine in a sometimes dark world.  You can tell a bit if the keeper leans toward the intellectual, or is outgoing and friendly, or is aesthetically appreciative, or is hopeful.

All of those factors, and the implication about the keeper, are of different sorts than the idea that ‘it fits in the cage I already had’.  I think that’s important for our animals, and for us.  
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