Eggs are starting to show changes...
The eggs are starting to show changes in size and shape. Notice eggs #11, #12, and #13 have become more elongated.
Could one of these be the first to crack? Watch and see!
Contest Is closed but is this gonna be fun and close!
WOW! 94 Entries have been turned in for the "When Will You Crack" contest! Thank you to all who have entered. The most popular Hatch date is July 26th and time is A.M. Now for the Egg number, well it is a close race between egg #13 and #8 -I will be keeping my eye close on them. This is fun for me and I get to check the eggs throughout the contest to keep you updated. Keep checking the blog for updated pictures as we watch to see which egg will crack first!
Today (June 23rd) is the LAST day to enter the WHEN WILL YOU CRACK CONTEST by Supreme Gecko! You could win a $100 Gift Certificate to use through Supreme Geckos on-line store or at a Reptile show that we are vending at.
The picture was taken this morning - check out the eggs and make your guess. Get it in tonight by midnight (central time)
We need the Egg #, date you think it will hatch, and am., noon. or pm and your email address
Good Luck!!!
1 day left to enter contest
All entries are due on Tues. June 23rd by midnight central time. Get your guess in quick!
Crested Gecko Diet- The Easy Form!
As I have had a great response this last year to our new store design ( www.store.supremegecko.com ), several hobbyists have asked for an easier Crested Gecko Diet checkout process.
Please check out Created Gecko Food- Easy Form. While there is a ton of information on this ONE page- video on how to mix the diet, the difference between MRP and CGD, etc. I am hoping this has made it A LOT easier to order your food.
Try it out and let me know if you have any suggestions.
Please check out Created Gecko Food- Easy Form. While there is a ton of information on this ONE page- video on how to mix the diet, the difference between MRP and CGD, etc. I am hoping this has made it A LOT easier to order your food.
Try it out and let me know if you have any suggestions.
5 days left to enter the contest !
You have 5 more days to enter! Deadline for entries is June 23rd at Midnight - Central Time
Goosebumps normal?
This is the "non reptile person" wanting to know if it is normal to get goosebumps when feeding fast moving animals?
Still collecting eggs from the Leopards
Today I fed all the adult leopards and collected 3 batches of eggs. They are starting to slow down in laying. Not to worry we have 5 incubators full of eggs waiting to hatch. My question is where are they all going to go?
Put A Hold On Mold....
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If you are having an issue with mold spots on healthy eggs, check out this wonderful post over at Heather's Herps- Heather's Solution.
We need your turtle pictures!
MCSS has recently produced a poster to encourage public participation in the Turtle photo-ID programme which is being managed by the Kelonia Marine Turtle Observatory.
The MCSS poster will be distributed to Dive Centres and Tour Operators, as well as Hotels and Resorts in the Seychelles which host nesting turtle populations.
This will go a long way to help expand the Indian Ocean database which currently has turtle images from the following islands: Reunion, Mayotte, Comoros, Madagascar, Europa, Tromelin, Glorieuse Juan da Nova and some islands in Seychelles.
If you have photos you would like to contribute please contact us.
Leopard gecko hatches in our facility
It is very interesting to me to see all the different color patterns of the leopards as they hatch. I am surprised to see that 2 eggs that were laid and collected at the same time can be so different sometimes. The babies are growing at a fast rate and now some of them are getting to a size that I consider a challenge for me the "Non-Reptile Person" to work with. How can such a small animal intimidate me so?
Most popular egg is #...
We have 86 entries at this time. You have 6 more days to enter! Deadline for entries is June 23rd at Midnight - Central Time
Most popular egg is #8
Most popular hatch date is July 26th
Get your guess in and you may win a $100 gift certificate to the online "Supreme Gecko Store" or our table "Supreme Gecko" at a Reptile show we vend at.
Most popular egg is #8
Most popular hatch date is July 26th
Get your guess in and you may win a $100 gift certificate to the online "Supreme Gecko Store" or our table "Supreme Gecko" at a Reptile show we vend at.
Egg Picture Update 6-13-09
Eggs are looking great! I have 77 entries at this time! Join in on the fun and enter your guess.
Contest Update
Hi to all our gecko friends! The contest is under way and we are getting entries daily. We have 65 entries at this time ! Hurry and get yours in for a chance to win ! Tomorrow there will be a picture of the eggs on the blog - come back and check it out :)
540+ days and still transmitting!
It been more than 18 months since she was released, and Carol is still transmitting data to MCSS via the Argos Satellite system.
Carol’s journey from Seychelles to Madagascar, vie Coetivy island, courtesy www.seaturtle.orgThis is definitely the longest recorded satellite track, in terms of duration, for an animal tagged in Seychelles (the longest whale shark attachment so far has been 123 days for a PAT tagged shark) and is possibly a world record for a GPS-satellite tagged turtle.
Longest distance a whale shark has been tracked from Seychelles (3383 km); orange track is after the tag detached and was drifting free. From the MCSS Whale Shark Monitoring Programme, courtesy of David RowatCarol arrived in Madagascar in April 2008 after a journey of some 2644 kms and has been very active. Since her arrival North West of the Mitsio islands she has generally stayed within a fairly restricted area around one of the offshore reef systems making over numerous dives each day to depths of around 50 to 60 metres but occasionally making deeper dives to depths of around 100 metres.
By comparison her movement away from the reef system or around the islands has been very limited with only one excursion towards mainland Madagascar in late January, early February of this year.
Carols movements have been limited apart from one excursion in January 2009, courtesy www.seaturtle.orgSo carol and her tag seem to be quite happy off Mitsio, we wonder if she will return to Seychelles to nest this season?
Contest- When Will You Crack! Win $100 gift certificate
Supreme Gecko announces an event to test your skills at picking the leopard gecko egg that will hatch first! All you need to do is pick the egg # you feel will be the 'Golden' egg to hatch first and you can win a $100 gift certificate to be used at any reptile show we vend or on the Supreme Gecko on-line Store.
All you need to do is provide a comment below or Email us supremegecko@wi.rr.com with the following information:
NAME,
Email address
Egg #
Date
AM or noon or PM
See rules below.
RULES
Info
14 eggs from 7 different females will be used in the contest. They were all laid and collected within a 24 hour period (on June 2nd).
Incubation- Hovabator set at 82 degrees. (note- at this temperature, eggs hatch in about 8 weeks). Pictures will be taken at least once a day and possibly more frequently after the first few weeks.
Guess the egg that will hatch out first. Your guess should include your Name, your Email address, Egg #, Date, AM/noon/PM (we will be checking eggs in the morning, at noon, and in the evening as expected hatch dates near).
How To Guess
Submit your guesses in any number of ways- through Facebook, the Supreme Gecko Store, the blog, or even from posts on the forums.
One guess per person will be accepted between 6/9/2009 and midnight 6/23/2009.
Winner
The winner will be the person that guesses the egg number that hatches FIRST!
If there are multiple guesses with the correct egg number, then hatch date, then hatch time (AM/noon/PM) will be used to determine the winner.
In the event of a tie, a new group of eggs that are close to hatching (either the remaining eggs in the initial 14 or a new group that is close to hatching) will be provided. The tied entries will make a new selection within 24 hours. The selections will be posted and the contest will resume with only the tied contestants. Again, the winner will be the one with the egg number that hatches first, then correct date, then time (AM/noon/PM).
Prize
Supreme Gecko will donate a $100 gift certificate that may be used on our on-line store or at any reptile show we vend at (valid until August 1, 2010).
Misc.
In normal hatching situations, some eggs may not hatch. This may be due to any number of factors. We will leave the eggs in the incubator as long as they appear not to impact the hatching of another egg. If an egg is pulled before the first hatch, unfortunately these guesses still count and a new guess will not be allowed.
Email addresses may be used in future correspondence.
This contest is meant to be used for educational and entertainment purposes as the prize offered is not of cash value.
Only one entry per person, please. If we find that multiple entries are submitted for one person, their entries will be removed.
Family members are not eligible to participate in this contest.
Wally finds a hatch first !
The one day I get to sleep in and Wally cheats and goes down to check the incubators! Of course, I knew that Torch would be hatching today - but he found the hatch first. He really doesn't get the chance to find the hatches so I guess one day a week is ok.
Thanks for making us welcome!
MCSS would like to thank the French Embassy in Seychelles and Region Reunion for funding the recent scoping mission to Reunion Island and the Kelonia Marine Turtle Observatory under the regional cooperation agreement for marine turtle conservation. Special thanks to Michel Vely, the Technical advisor in the Nature & Conservation Division of the Ministry of Environment in Seychelles, who co-ordinated the process.
MCSS would especially like to thank all staff at Kelonia for making David and Elke feel welcome in Reunion and putting up with their appalling French! Special thanks to:
Thanks also to Claudette Donz, the Marketing Manager and Gérard Trules from the IT Department at Kelonia.
Thanks also to Dr Delphine Mutz from IRD and Ifremer for explaining the techniques used in Genetics; Dr. Matthieu Lecorre for organising the symposium at the University of Reunion; Dr. Violaine Dulau from Globice, for a delicious lunch and her interesting presentation on photo ID of Cetaceans; Jean-Yves from Dodo Spot for providing accommodation and waking up early to make us breakfast; and the staff at O’Jacare in St Leu for feeding David and Elke for 5 nights out of 7 - the best scallops, raw fish, calamari and duck this side of the equator!
We look forward to a long and productive relationship helping to conserve turtles and all marine life in the Western Indian Ocean.
- Stephane Ciccione, Director of Kelonia, for organising our stay in Reunion, welcoming David and Elke at Kelonia and for taking Elke to a black sand beach for a photo op!
- Claire Jean, Project Officer at Kelonia, for translating David’s PowerPoint presentation (twice!), going through the various Kelonia projects with Elke, sharing her office and putting up with David and Elke for a week,
- Cyrille Lebon, an MSc Student from France, for giving Elke 2 tests on turtle photo-ID!
- Emily Richard, the assistant Public Relations Officer, for sharing information about the Public Awareness Programme at Kelonia and allowing Elke to join her with a group of school children who were visiting the facility.
- Thierry Lauret, a Guide at Kelonia, for taking David and Elke on a tour of Kelonia on their first day.
- Bernadin Ouaratta, Kevin Certat, David Artrigo and Alain Castle from the Turtle Care Centre for allowing Elke to play with their turtles and clean their tanks.
- Dr Manfred Enstipp, for talking about his project on turtle respiration, sharing his experience on satellite tagging with David and letting Elke play with Elizabeth, his main test animal.
Thanks also to Claudette Donz, the Marketing Manager and Gérard Trules from the IT Department at Kelonia.
Thanks also to Dr Delphine Mutz from IRD and Ifremer for explaining the techniques used in Genetics; Dr. Matthieu Lecorre for organising the symposium at the University of Reunion; Dr. Violaine Dulau from Globice, for a delicious lunch and her interesting presentation on photo ID of Cetaceans; Jean-Yves from Dodo Spot for providing accommodation and waking up early to make us breakfast; and the staff at O’Jacare in St Leu for feeding David and Elke for 5 nights out of 7 - the best scallops, raw fish, calamari and duck this side of the equator!
We look forward to a long and productive relationship helping to conserve turtles and all marine life in the Western Indian Ocean.
Two more photos
Here are a couple new leopard gecko photos.
The Mack Super Snow is now a bit older and the reverse stripe is a new born.
We're REALLY excited about the reverse stripe!
Updated Owner's Pet Gallery
A new OWNER'S PET GALLERY has just been added to the Supreme Gecko Store page. I've been working on this a bit the last couple days and it is what I was hoping for- A place for customers of Supreme Gecko to show off their geckos. I still have a couple to add but thought I would put this out there for now.
So- if you have pet photos and are a customer of SG, please send them in so you can show off your geckos!
Here is the new link- Owners Pet Gallery
Raising awareness on Photo-ID methods used in marine animals
Photo identification is a non-invasive method for identifying individual animals of a species in the wild. It is based on distinct marking or patterns visible on each animal that are stable over time and has been shown to work well on a number of animal species. In the marine field its use with Cetaceans and Whale Sharks, allows researchers to stay at a distance, thus ensuring that they have minimal impact on the animal’s behaviour.
Photo-ID is slowly replacing standard marking techniques, such as using marker tags, which are intrusive and can be stressful to the animal during the application and re-capture process.
Within the Indian Ocean, several organisations have been using Photo-ID on their study animals and three recently came together to give presentations of their work:
MCSS uses the spot patterns on whale sharks to identify individual animals that visit Seychelles every year. These are then compared to sightings from around the region and also submitted to the ECOCEAN database.
Globice identifies individual Humpback Whales and the larger species of Dolphins using the shape of the dorsal fin and the colour pattern of the tail fluke; and
Kelonia has developed a photo-ID method that relies on the number, position and shapes of scales in profile shots of marine turtles.
During the recent MCSS visit to Reunion the opportunity was taken to organise two mini-symposiums with these three organisations presenting their photo-ID methods. One presentation at the Kelonia facility was aimed at the general public while a second, slightly more technical presentation was targeted at students and researchers from the University of Reunion.
Photo-ID is slowly replacing standard marking techniques, such as using marker tags, which are intrusive and can be stressful to the animal during the application and re-capture process.
Within the Indian Ocean, several organisations have been using Photo-ID on their study animals and three recently came together to give presentations of their work:
MCSS uses the spot patterns on whale sharks to identify individual animals that visit Seychelles every year. These are then compared to sightings from around the region and also submitted to the ECOCEAN database.
Globice identifies individual Humpback Whales and the larger species of Dolphins using the shape of the dorsal fin and the colour pattern of the tail fluke; and
Kelonia has developed a photo-ID method that relies on the number, position and shapes of scales in profile shots of marine turtles.
During the recent MCSS visit to Reunion the opportunity was taken to organise two mini-symposiums with these three organisations presenting their photo-ID methods. One presentation at the Kelonia facility was aimed at the general public while a second, slightly more technical presentation was targeted at students and researchers from the University of Reunion.
Photo Identification of marine mega-fauna, poster by Kelonia Marine Turtle Observatory.
The use of these non-invasive techniques has great application for the regional sharing of data on these species and we look forward to greater regional cooperation in these efforts.
How Many?????
I, "the non-reptile person" looks forward to collecting the eggs. In order to keep the animal away from my hand when collecting I feed and water at the same time. Tonight, I was surprised to find 1, 3, no 9 more sets of eggs!! Can't wait to see them hatch.
Waiting to check for hatches is hard!
Eggs are a hatching! It is SO hard not the look in the incubators constantly throughout the day. Our rule is once in the morning and once at night in order not to open the incubators too many times to avoid disturbing the temperature of the incubators. The one good thing is that there is a little window on the top and I can see in to see if there are babies. Today when I was checking for hatches, my son came in and was excited to see 3 no 4 hatches today! He was also very surprised to see all the eggs in the incubators and wonders where I will be putting all the babies when they hatch?
Smile for the camera!
Identifying individual animals over a period of time can provide information on population size, and individual survival amongst other things and as such is a key tool for conservation. But how do you identify animals that basically look alike? In turtle conservation throughout the world, much effort is focused on the use of marker tags and in these species the easily accessible part of the population is nesting females.
In some places, such as the Aldabra Atoll World Heritage site in Seychelles, juveniles are caught in the reef flats for tagging and weighing. Mature adult males, however, are pretty much inaccessible not only because they occur in deeper waters, but also swim much faster and weigh significantly more, making it hard to “throw” them into a boat for weighing, measuring and tagging.
Juvenile turtles are easy to catch in shallow lagoons for mark and recapture studies, photo Pierre André Adam. Given these limitations, a number of organisations around the world have looked at ways of using photographs to identify individuals and this has now been tried with turtles. In Hawaii, for example, researchers looked for patterns in the scales and have been able to track turtles for over 15 years.
Clothahump, was first identified in 1988 (left) off Honokowai, West Maui in Hawaii and re-sighted in 1993 (right), photo Turtle Trax.This method of photo identification, however, is subjective. Claire Jean, Project Officer at Kelonia, in association with the Information Technologies department at the University of Reunion have devised a new method which uses the number, location and shape of scales from the left and right side of the turtle's head to identify individuals in a population. So far, this method has been tested and validated on Green turtles and Claire is being assisted by Cyrille Lebon, an MSc student from the University of St Etiennes in France, in this task .
Kelonia-coded Green turtle, photo Cyrille Lebon With the recent submission of over 70 images by MCSS , Cyrille is doing further testing to see if the same method can be applied to Hawksbill turtles. Despite having fewer scales to code, preliminary results show that the method should work on this smaller species, provided that the image is complete i.e. nesting turtles are usually covered in sand and often, their neck is slightly retracted during laying thus obscuring outlying scales.
Images of nesting turtles are not always usable because they are partly obscured by sand, photo Uli Enfont. In addition to testing the coding method on turtles, Claire and Cyrille are also testing humans to see how easy or hard it is to teach others to use this method. Using a standard protocol (written in French unfortunately!), volunteers were asked to code 16 photographs of turtles after reading the protocol. Despite her limited French, Elke also volunteered for this test.
Elke taking her turtle photo-ID test very seriously, photo Claire Jean. Early results show that while the protocol is well annotated and generally well understood, a few exceptions stipulated in the photo-ID programme require additional clarification, meaning proper training is indispensable. However, as Cyrille is doing his thesis on validating the Kelonia photo-ID protocol, he needs figures to back up this claim, so at the recent photo ID mini-symposium held at the University of Reunion (see coming blog), he had a captive audience on which to re-test the protocol, this time with training.
Cyrille presenting the turtle photo-ID protocol for re-testing (with training) on University students, photo Claire Jean.Once again, Elke was roped into the test. Her results for test 1 (without training) were; 71 errors; 17 missing scales and 11 added scales, while for test 2 (with training); 64 errors, 10 missing scales and 9 added scales … and according to Cyrille, these were the best results from all participants for the two tests!!
HELP US KEEP TRACK OF OUR TURTLES:
If you would like to assist with this programme, please feel free to send us your photographs of turtles. Simply include: your name, the date and location of the photograph and the turtle’s behaviour at the time (i.e. feeding, resting, swimming etc.) and we will include it in the rapidly growing database.
More cleaning for Elke to do!
Instead of taking Saturday off for sightseeing around Reunion, Elke insisted on assisting Bernadin Ouaratta and Alain Castel with cleaning the turtle tanks – any excuse to get back into the main viewing tank!
While Bernadin scrubbed Blanche’s tank, Elke scrubbed Blanche!
Blanche getting her weekly scrub by Elke, photo David Rowat.Blanche was completely unbothered by all the attention and seemed happy to be held by Elke, once again armed with a scrubbing brush.
Next on the cleaning schedule was the main viewing tank!
While Bernadin went to get the stuff for cleaning the main viewing window, Elke was allowed into the water to attempt to clean the turtles – 3 of which happened to be “wild” animals!
Having been warned by Bernadin that the Hawksbills have a tendency to bite, Elke was weary of getting up close and personal with them and headed straight for Archelon – who swam away!
Archelon diving deep to avoid another scrubbing, photo David Rowat.Carotte, the loggerhead, and Olive, the Olive Ridley, where hiding at the deep end so Elke did not even attempt to clean them – not a problem as they had already been scrubbed on Thursday.
Carrotte staying as far away from Elke as possible, photo David Rowat.As Bernadin had not yet returned, Elke was checking out the resident fish in the tank when all of a sudden she had a curious Hawsbill on her hands – Croupette wanted to say hi!
Cautiously Elke tried to touch her with the scrubbing brush – which she tried to nip! So, armed with a bright yellow crock (Elke’s shoe) in one hand, acting as “bait” and the brush in the other, Elke was able to give Croupette a half scrub. The turtle eventually agreed to have her head scrubbed but would shy away every time Elke tired to clean her shell.
Croupette having her head scrubbed, photo David Rowat.Myriam was not at all impressed with all the attention that Croupette was getting and chased the smaller Hawksbill away. She then eyeballed Elke, who with some persuasion (using the crock to keep her beak at arm length) managed to get her shell cleaned.
Myriam at arms length, photo David Rowat.Once the viewing window was cleaned, Elke then assisted with the morning feed in the Care Centre. Having fallen in love with one particular turtle, Elke then spent the rest of the morning saying bye-bye to Virginie, who had no issues being scrubbed by Elke. Indeed she would follow Elke around her tank, demanding more attention.
Virginie, an injured captive Green turtle who bonded with Elke, photo David Rowat.IMPORTANT
While swimming with “tame” turtles was great fun, it is important to stress that most of these turtles have been living in captivity for over 20 years and, as such, have come to rely on humans for their survival. In no way, shape or form, do we at MCSS recommend that anyone try this in the wild!
Het Raptor- Our favorite so far
Raptor 2
Raptor
Mack Super Snow
EnigmaMeet, Greet, and Pet Get Together in SE Wisc. May 29,2009
What a great time! We met at Rob and Beth Hall's around 10:30 or so. Rob offered a brief opening discussion (focusing on asking everyone to keep reading and staying in touch with the latest activities in our hobby). Rob is ALWAYS educating. He then took folks down to his reptile area in groups (I cheated and went down multiple times to take some photos).
What a display!!! The animals were all extremely healthy, alert, awake, and ready to be pet! His tegus are unreal! So calm and gentle. Rob brought out his albino and het for albino and provided some education for the groups. Neat animals. There was so much to check out in his facility that I feel even with my multiple trips down, I missed a bunch of stuff :) Rob has designed, developed and built most of his enclosures. They are all perfect for the animals. Did I mention the alligators! WoW! We make the trip up to the living room and found more setups- bearded dragon, G. vorex, and other animals welcomed us there. Rob provided a couple of tricks from the vorex.
When all groups completed the tour, we were back up, grabbed some wonderful food (thank you again Rob and Beth for the great lunch!) and outside to talk reptiles. After some give away prizes and more reptile talking we decided to wrap it up before it got dark on us.
I hope everyone enjoyed the time with other gecko keepers, learned something new, and just enjoyed themselves- like I certainly did.
I will be putting together other MGP (Meet, Greet, and Pet) get togethers this summer and fall so stay tuned.
Please enjoy the photos (yes I was at the event even though I am not in any of the photos). Since there were so many pictures, I threw together a page...
Meet, Greet, Pet- More Pictures
What a display!!! The animals were all extremely healthy, alert, awake, and ready to be pet! His tegus are unreal! So calm and gentle. Rob brought out his albino and het for albino and provided some education for the groups. Neat animals. There was so much to check out in his facility that I feel even with my multiple trips down, I missed a bunch of stuff :) Rob has designed, developed and built most of his enclosures. They are all perfect for the animals. Did I mention the alligators! WoW! We make the trip up to the living room and found more setups- bearded dragon, G. vorex, and other animals welcomed us there. Rob provided a couple of tricks from the vorex.
When all groups completed the tour, we were back up, grabbed some wonderful food (thank you again Rob and Beth for the great lunch!) and outside to talk reptiles. After some give away prizes and more reptile talking we decided to wrap it up before it got dark on us.
I hope everyone enjoyed the time with other gecko keepers, learned something new, and just enjoyed themselves- like I certainly did.
I will be putting together other MGP (Meet, Greet, and Pet) get togethers this summer and fall so stay tuned.
Please enjoy the photos (yes I was at the event even though I am not in any of the photos). Since there were so many pictures, I threw together a page...
Meet, Greet, Pet- More Pictures
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