I have lost 5 of my babies in the last few months. It got me thinking that it would be cool to start a thread where we can remember our beloved reptiles that have passed away. I’ll start things off with the ones I’ve lost recently:
This is Myrtle! She was the second leopard gecko (and reptile) I ever got, back when I was still in undergrad. For many years she was the matriarch of my little gecko clan. She was one of the earlier snows produced by Albey Scholl. She was incredibly smart for a leopard gecko, and wouldn’t tolerate having a cagemate, regardless of how much space they were given. She was 18 years old.
This is Penguin! Penguin was a bit mentally slow, but super sweet and trusting. It always drove me absolutely insane that I could never seem to put any weight on her, almost all of her life. I tried a ton of different food types, checked fecals, the works, but to no avail. When she was shedding, she often had trouble with the portion on her head, and I think that’s what led to her interesting eyes and eyelids. I did read in one source that ‘bug eye’ is actually a trait, and is considered undesirable, but i haven’t seen it mentioned elsewhere. My grand-baby Gentoo was named by my mother in Penguin’s honor. Penguin was 17 years old.
This is Rasputin! Rasputin was small for a male, cantankerous, and a troublemaker. He almost always tried to bite, and would void his bowels if he was exceptionally irritated. When I tried to breed him, he literally hid under the paper towel substrate. He didn’t learn to remove his shed from his feet on his own until he was well past ‘middle age,’ which explained why he came to me with mostly stubby toes. He also came loaded with pin worms… yuck! Yeltsin was named by my mother in honor of Rasputin. (We used to live in Russia when I was a kid, while it was still Soviet.) Rasputin was at least 17 years old.
This is Caiman! Caiman was tsf, but decided that he had his own ideas about what gender he wanted to be! That was how I ended up with my very first male! He was a big boy, and probably the most chill of my males. He was also my dad’s favorite- I still remember this one time when he asked me to feed Caiman, so he could see, as he was curious. (This was exceptional because my dad doesn’t generally have any interest in pets aside from dogs.) Caiman was 17 years old.
This is Impi! She was Myrtle & Caiman’s daughter, and was always super feisty! She even attacked her sister one day and ate her tail! (Needless to say, she’s lived solo since then.) I used to live in South Africa, and ‘Impi’ is a Zulu word for war/fighting, and I named her that because she yelled at me constantly when she was a juvenile. Impi was 14 years old.
Ok guys- your turn!
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And agreed- Caiman was very handsome. He was technically a normal, but something about his head stamp and pattern made him a super good-lookin’ guy, hehe!
He sure was a cute little man. One of my hatchlings this season is an extreme runt (about half the size of their clutchmate), and I’ve been very concerned about developmental problems myself.
). I’d take a pic, but I’m afraid to disturb the pile and have all the toys all fall on me. But I love having plushies to remind me of loved ones. I have a giraffe that reminds me of my grandpa (he was VERY tall, and seemed impossibly enormous when I was little). 
In that last picture she looked like she was playing hide and seek. 
She had a great life with you and you went above and beyond for taking care of her. 
She was absolutely crazy about food- never turned down a meal, even recently. Whenever she saw that I had tongs in my hand, she would do hilarious jumps and climbs to try and get to the food, regardless of what I was feeding.
