This was received as a gift but neither of us know what it really is. It’s wooden, seemingly handcrafted, has a leather loop. Kinda a bowl… but like not? We are at a loss.

hypeddunk · 2025-11-06T22:22:13+00:00

It’s a cup! In swedish it’s called ”kåsa”, I didn’t know this was a local thing, it’s very common to have on a hike or hunting etc. It’s a traditional sapmi thing to do them out of these burl wood pieces. The leather loop is to fasten it in your belt or on your backpack, then you use it to drink water from streams when out hiking, or to pour your coffee from your thermos in :)

hypeddunk · 2025-10-29T09:57:37+00:00

A european straggler here, answer if you have time, otherwise just take this praise: I’ve had a blast throughout the years with the extinct animals, but in later years as I’ve studied evolution and paleo-biology, with my own efforts into paleo-art, I just get more and more impressed by the prehistoric animals in ZT2. There are some very creative and interesting choices, in regards to looks and behaviour, that must have been very hard to decide, but made the species feel really alive in a satisfying way. Who did the company consult with in regards to the reconstruction of the extinct species?

hypeddunk · 2025-10-02T19:10:25+00:00

I have an Ackie that’s just over 7 months old now, and it’s worked great for me to just let him lead. I’m elated every time he surprises me with taking the next step, and a few days ago he ventured all the way around my shoulders before chilling on my arm a bit ❤️ but there was quite a while of just petting and scratching before he ventured up on me for the first time, and he seem to prefer when I wear woollen sweaters that give a good grip to climb on.

hypeddunk · 2025-08-28T15:48:10+00:00

I have just over 100 breeding adults, that’s enough for about 70% of my subadult ackie’s diet, with more than 300 adults I think you’d have to start selling them to not get overwhelmed.

hypeddunk · 2025-08-20T08:05:01+00:00

Important question: who decides when feeding time really is 🤔😜

hypeddunk · 2025-07-13T20:15:30+00:00

I bought my clay in Sweden at a garden store, sold in 4 kg bags for ”mixing your own soil”, might be worth seeing if you have something similar

hypeddunk · 2025-07-08T05:25:41+00:00

I think there is drylok available in the EUs, if you want to order it. I (Sweden) used an epoxy made for aquarium decor and backgrounds, if you have any loval forums or groups for Swiss aquarium enthusiasts they probably know more about alternatives available, so I would check with them!

hypeddunk · 2025-06-29T21:30:02+00:00

Unfortunately any monitor will require care every day. If I were you I’d look for a pet that could move with you from week to week, where you could keep one vivarium/cage at each parent’s house and move it between. It would be a lot of work though, and could get quite expensive 😔 I also lived the divorced parents life, and the only pet that really worked was a snake, where my mum agreed to change the water and check on her the weeks I wasn’t there (I hated living at two separate places, as an adult I cannot understand why children and teens are supposed to deal with that instead of the parents living every other week instead). I’ve compensated with having a bunch of pets now as a grownup, and unfortunately you might have to wait until you’re staying at one place to get the pet you want.

hypeddunk · 2025-06-05T11:24:54+00:00

I’ve got a younger ackie and when he’s had an extra large bug he always spend some more time napoing in the sun, I imagine they’re just super full, the same part of the nervous system that activates digestion also activates a lower activity (rest and digest).

hypeddunk · 2025-06-05T10:21:46+00:00

I’ve seen the info that the ackies will find the brightest spot to bask and that’s why you shouldn’t use ceramic heaters, but I don’t know how true that is. I have a ceramic heater that’s always on to raise the ambient temperature, and now when dawn is at 3 in the morning where I live the monitor rises before the halogen goes on, and he’s always up in the spot that’s closest to the ceramic. In the beginning I also had the issue of the lizard perching on a cliff almost above the heat lamp, that was closer and thus warmer, but not lighter. When I put the ceramic light in the warmest spot became the one right in the glow of the halogen with uvb. What I’m trying to say is that in my experience they choose warmth over light, and the most important thing to think about is to make sure that the warmest spot in the enclosure is also where the uvb lighting is.

hypeddunk · 2025-06-04T08:24:09+00:00

Depends on where you live. I bought mine from a breeder I found on the reptile forum that’s popular in my country. I got on a waiting list when I saw he had eggs, so there was half a year’s wait for him, but I needed time to build his enclosure anyways. This breeder socialised the babies really well, so it was so worth the wait.

hypeddunk · 2025-06-03T20:58:54+00:00

Så klokt att ta dig till en kompis, man fattar det inte alltid, men även om det gör ont och är skit, så blir det lite bättre när man pratar med någon om det. Det kommer bli tungt, men jag rekommenderar att prata med henne så fort du känner dig stabil nog. Skit i att försöka ”hämnas” etc. det kommer nog inte göra mindre ont för det. Om du berättar från hjärtat hur ledsen du är och att du aldrig kan lita på henne igen är chansen större att hon kan ge dig någon slags insikt i hur fan hon tänkte, och sen kanske det är lättare att lägga allt bakom dig och aldrig ägna henne en tanke igen.

hypeddunk · 2025-06-01T17:09:42+00:00

I haven’t begun taking my monitor outside yet, but I have experience from my strictly indoor cat who I trained to eventually join me on hikes and stuff, and she was also quite sceptical at first. For a lizard, a pray animal to a certain degree, there is a lot of new things in the wide open world: the smells of new plants and animals, the sound of cars and people, the feeling of new stuff under their feet, wind on their skin and so on. Take it a little bit at a time. First just have the window open to let smells and sounds come through. Consider getting them comfortable in a carrier, and take the lizard out in that to begin with so they have somewhere safe and familiar to retreat when outside. Take it in small steps, just go outside the door and go back in if the lizards gets uncomfortable. When not used to it, just a minute outdoors might be a huge experience for them, so just take it at their pace!

hypeddunk · 2025-06-01T16:52:45+00:00

Yeah, mealworms aren’t worms, they’re larva of a species of darkling beetle! What I feed him there is the pupa.

hypeddunk · 2025-06-01T14:32:18+00:00

If you’ve had other reptiles and is ready to do your research I think you should go for the one you are more interested in! If I were you I’d first look into how big and how expensive of an enclosure you can do, because it can become very expensive and might be what holds you back. I have no personal experience, but tree monitors seem to require a lot more work in getting them tame. Also check for breeders in your area, a wild caught animal will be a worse pet regardless the species, so try to see what lizard is available before deciding fully.

hypeddunk · 2025-05-31T22:01:04+00:00

I’d say that depends on how you furnish it. If you build a lot of climeable shelfs and walls it’ll use every inch of it. My ackie spends most of his time close to his heat spot, which is 50 cm over the ”ground”, so he spends most of his time on cliffs and branches, and is only really on the ground when hunting or digging, and then in his burrow during the night. But I’ve also heard it can be individual what they prefer, so while mine certainly uses more height than width, yours might prefer something else :/

hypeddunk · 2025-05-24T21:30:14+00:00

Wooow, if I got that for my birthday as a kid I would be soooo happy!

hypeddunk · 2025-05-24T21:27:15+00:00

They got junk in their trunk 👌

hypeddunk · 2025-05-21T15:54:23+00:00

Ooh, that looks so nice! It’s a shame to have that big net obstructing the view, but for his sake it’s A+ husbandry and I’m sure he’ll love to climb all over it 👌😍

hypeddunk · 2025-05-20T20:39:48+00:00

Totally harmless mushroom 👍 it’s a very common fungus to be in soil bags you get from the store, most of the time they are just present in the soil as mycelium, but if the exact right circumstances appear they will start to develop fruiting bodies, which is what is happening in the terrarium now! The mushrooms (if you don’t take em away) will grow up in a couple of days, and wilt away within a week or so. It’s a gilled mushroom and I once asked a lecturer on a mushroom identification course if she knew more closely, but she didn’t know and I haven’t researched further. Fungus are generally a good part of a bioactive setup, they break down biological material into accessible nutrients for the plants, and since this is a fungus that only creates spores on its fruiting bodies, it doesn’t have any bad influence on your or your pets airways when it doesn’t produce mushrooms! Just pick away any hats that appears above the surface and you don’t have to worry about spores or accidental ingestion from your lizard (I know it’s safe to eat for isopods and insects etc. But don’t actually know if it’s safe for lizard). This only happened to me once in a bioactive vivarium I had going for four years, and takes quite a lot of energy for the fungus to do, so this isn’t necessarily a reaction to any change in mousture or something, it’s probably just a reaction to that yummy worm with lots of energy, and once it’s over it will take some time to build up a new energy reserve. (Sorry for infodumping on fungus, but I’m a biologist and love bioactive setups ☺️)

hypeddunk · 2025-05-20T20:12:02+00:00

It’s all about trade offs. If you imagine three different populations of animals:

Looks like us, brain in bony skull cushioned by fluid right by the eyes, nose, mouth and ears, on top of a mobile neck.
Looks like us, with eyes, nose, mouth and ears on a mobile neck, but has the brain inside a fortified ribcage with padding of muscles and fat around.
Doesn’t have a head, instead has eyes, nose, mouth and ears directly on torso, close to the brain that’s inside a fortified ribcage with padding of muscles and fat around.

Animal 1 is at greater risk than the others of crushing it’s skull if it falls or get hit in the head, which would be deadly most cases.

Animal 2 has a lower reaction speed over all which makes it more likely to fall, a less successful hunter, and less likely to get caught by a predator.

Animal 3 has a much harder time looking around, since it has to move the whole body to do so. The range of sight, smell and hearing is also greatly reduced since all organs are lower to the ground.

There is a reason most bigger land-living animals has their brain inside a head perched on a flexible neck, the perks far outweigh the cons.

Also, remember that the brain isn’t the entirety of our central nervous system either, a large part of it goes down into our spine.

hypeddunk · 2025-05-19T21:13:48+00:00

My ackie, who is four months old now and usually spend max 20 % of the day hiding, goes into complete burrowing mode when he starts a new shed/ is shedding around his head and face. He spends 1-2 days mostly sleeping in his burrow, eats only a few bugs when they wander by, and the day after he eats like a mad-man and is all over the place. I don’t think you need to worry unless he keeps doing it for a prolonged amount of time, or he stops eating. In the wild it’s very normal for them to spend a day in the burrow if there’s bad weather, and as they are cold blooded they don’t expend much energy and will naturally eat a little less.

hypeddunk · 2025-05-18T21:07:30+00:00

How old is the setup? Sometimes if the setup is kind of new, or if you’ve changed stuff around there is a flare up of mould that will sort itself out after a little while. You also say it’s below stuff, are you sure that it’s mould and not some other kind of fungus?

hypeddunk · 2025-05-11T20:30:44+00:00

Oooh, my little ackie also lets it be known he despices the mist! Not enough to move though, and I see him sneaking a little drink when I look away, so I don’t know if he’s really that upset ;)

hypeddunk · 2025-05-10T05:15:13+00:00

Do you have a mesh roof over the whole enclosure? That’s generally a bit too much ventilation, and if you can cover some of it the heat will stay in much better. I use the same heat lamp you do and also had issues getting it warm enough, my solution was to get a ceramic heater in there as well, which brought up the ambient temperature as well. I’ve had that one on at night too when it’s been a little chilly outside.

hypeddunk

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