terrence

This is a 33min video I stumbled across, from the UK, of a university researcher who studied how to make Bearded Dragons happier and more active in a captive environment at some UK zoo... mostly pretty obvious things which I'd imagine the experienced among you already know, but you might still be interested.... http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... 8269646021

Ohhhh gotcha - trademe listing cheers

Sorry I don't understand, whats the number for?

Thanks guys I'll check out InsideOceans for a tank For the actual blue tongue lizard(s) I suppose I'll have to watch trademe closely until some appear from a chch trader? Surely shipping live lizards from one of the many auckland traders would be pretty dicey?

Wondered if anyone could suggest the best places to look at buying lizards and reasonable sized enclosures/equipment in Christchurch? Are there places known for bargains?

What sort is he?

Ok thanks guys. One thing I'm wondering is, why *do* they command such prices? Is it simply that there aren't many of them in NZ, so people are just willing to pay that price as they're exotic? Or is it hard to get them to breed in captivity, so babies are few and far between? Or some other factor I'm missing? If for instance I managed to get a decent enclosure setup, and got 2 babiy blue tongues, male and female - presumably within 1-2 years they'd reach breeding age, and I read their gestation period is around 100 days, and usually results in 5-10 babies?? Is it likely that a newbie such as myself could simply introduce the 2 in a "romantic hutch" hehe, and then expect nature to take its course, and result in a whole bunch of new additions? I'm presuming they do have a limited mating season... which would likely mean no more than one lot of babies per year? I'd imagine if that IS the case, many of you would be able to sell a couple of the babies and recover your initial outlay? I'll go and do some more reading about them too, but if you have a spare moment to help me get my head around what to expect with these creatures that'd be great

Thanks everybody for the suggestions! From everything I'm reading it sounds very intriguing, though the prices these ancient little creatures command is quite something I can imagine the addictive nature of the collection too... Ouch, $300 for a single baby... Are they very hardy little things? I don't mean to sound cold - it'd be bad enough if it promptly left this mortal coil, but the added monetary loss would just be salt in the wounds! I'd imagine they must be fairly hardy and pretty likely to live many years? Regarding the native permit etc - presumably in that case you'd have to prove to DOC that you know what you're doing, have a large suitable terrarium etc? Or is it more of a simple formality to get the permit? I'm liking the sound of free natives - and while I don't currently have experience with keeping reptiles, I'd be sure to learn quickly and provide a decent environment for them

After recently seeing forum posts of people discussing their various lizard collections, I became curious about how easy it is to get into? (Or more precisely, how *affordable* it is... after seeing some rather alarming pricetags on trademe etc) Is there a particular bargain lizard breed which is the cheapest way of starting out with this hobby? Or a particular shop/breeder who I should contact?