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(re-post)
I hope you guys are ready for a story! A couple of months ago when I picked up a package of supplies from the post office my postmaster mentioned he knew of someone looking to get rid of their lizard. Of course the first thing I asked was "what type of lizard" to which I got "Something with a 'V' I think"...so I asked him if it was a monitor, thinking the owner might have given him 'Varanus' as a description to which my postmaster replied "no...that's not it". I rattled off a bunch of other common lizard species, none of which rang a bell. He said he'd take my number down if I was interested, so I left it with him stating if I wasn't I'd try to help find a good home. Fast forward to last week, after hearing nothing since, I went to the post office to mail some things out and my postmaster brought it up again, saying that the woman tried calling me but my phone was out of service--turns out the number he wrote down was incorrect for one reason or another. Luckily she had left her number with him. A day or so later I finally got the chance to give her a call. Oddly enough she lives within a mile and the mysterious lizard happened to be a Uro, which she had a difficult time saying..."It's a Uro...Uromatic, Uromax...something like that" haha. I asked if she knew what species it was and that just even further confused her. So she went on to say her son has had it for around four or five years and that they feed her lettuce and crickets, bathe it once in a while (I think she said once a week (!), but I don't want to misquote her), it just lays around on the heatpad and that every once in a while it lays an egg. It's name is Ike and it was thought to be a male...even after she laid the eggs, which is another thing I thought was pretty funny despite the situation. She said it's about the size of the palm of a hand to which I thought 'what the hell? a five+ year old Uro that small!?'--I said, "wow, that seems pretty small" to which she replied "yeah, it's like a pygmy lizard or something". So I arranged to pick her up this morning and she said she would have her son help me carry the tank out to my car--the obvious question at that point was how large of a tank it was and whether or not it would fit in my car. She replied something along the lines of: it should fit, but it might be awkward...it might be 100gallon, I don't know though, I'm bad with this stuff. So here I am thinking, OK this tank is at least 75ga. I show up at the house and she invites me in, she says "Here she is!" and as I turn the corner I see a 20ga tank with about 1/2" of calci-sand at the bottom. Curled up under the hide was a very stout, fat, black and yellow Mali, still a bit damp from a morning bath. I thought to myself...oh boy. I gently explained to them nearly everything they had been told to do for the lizard had been misinformation and that I would take good care of her. It was, after all, mostly the fault of the petshop they purchased it from, which should be providing potential pet owners with very specific care information (I plan on dropping by this pet shop, which I'm quite familiar with, to provide them with a better caresheet for Uros). At least she had a UVB bulb, but I'm not sure how old it was nor am I sure if it was on.
Anyway, I've currently got her in the same tank with a better basking bulb and an actual basking surface until I can get something else put together. She's been in the same enclosure all her life so another week or two shouldn't hurt. I never meant to get into mali's so I'm not sure if I'll keep her for the remainder of her life or if I'll keep an eye out for another potential good home (especially since I was looking to add a pair of desert iguanas, an Indian star and or a pair of geryi, mcfadyeni or philbyi within the next year). I'll post a few pictures later and I'll keep ya'll updated on her (and my) progress.
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