This is THE BEST PET LIZARD! Enclosure build for the next big thing in the reptile hobby.

[Music] well hi there as you probably know michelle and i both fell really really in love with these incredible little skinks when we did our first video about them i wanted them so badly but i just couldn't justify buying them unless i was going to breed them because they're wild caught fortunately michelle made me an offer that i couldn't refuse and so together we purchased this pair of emerald tree skinks for clint's reptile room and so today i want to give you a little update about these incredible lizards i'd also like to give a quick shout out to our patrons at patreon who actually helped pay for a lot of this enclosure we're doing incredible big things and it's all because of you guys and there is a special little feature for our patrons called the patreon lens where we often share quick little updates about the things that we're doing expect updates about these guys thank you guys first i want to give you a quick overview of this rad enclosure that we built for them second i want to tell you why the emerald trees kink is in my opinion the best pet lizard i have ever come across and third i want to give you an update on how things are going with the breeding of these little lizards so for starters this is an exoterra tank and exoterra tanks do come with some form of a kind of natural looking styrofoam backdrop but for this enclosure i decided to take that out in favor of our gorilla glue backdrop which i very much prefer i'm just going to show you the process for how we did that in time lapse because we've actually got a whole video about this so if you want like detail on how to do this yourself you can check out that video right there [Music] second i did a false bottom on this thing and again i'm just going to show that in time lapse because we also have a full video on how to do that so if you want to know how to do that yourself check out this video then i got to the fun part these guys seem to do best drinking from leaves but i thought i'd give this exoterra waterfall that i have over here uh a shot since i had it and it was just laying around and so far i haven't seen them drinking from it but it does look really nice and it definitely helps with the humidity in the enclosure and you never know maybe they are drinking from it that'd be awesome these are very very arboreal lizards so despite the fact that i included some climbing branches right in the backdrop we also added a whole bunch more to this enclosure and you'll notice they will be climbing around on those branches and on me constantly i've been experimenting with a number of different plants in the reptile room and this is an assortment that i have found to be really easy to keep most of them are on our list of the top five best plants after the plants were in i added a little bit of moss and some of the leaf litter that pangaea sent to us i think it looks pretty nice i like this both for humidity for the aesthetic and for the fact that it keeps the lizards out of the dirt i don't mind them being able to find some dirt these guys do like to bury themselves every now and then but generally speaking when they're walking around i don't need them to be in the soil all the time after introducing isopods springtails uva and uvb lighting the enclosure was done and it was time for the lizards to be introduced they immediately began to explore since moving them to this enclosure my relationship with these lizards has changed completely i was keeping them in a temporary enclosure on top of the piano because any good reptile room has a piano i found that they would feed from tongs but spent a considerable amount of time hiding and would not come out to play they were basically like a nollies they were cool but not what i was expecting from these lizards this new enclosure is chest height and it's way more accessible for me it's also a larger enclosure and it's nicer for the lizards and immediately our relationship changed they are now exactly what i thought they would be maybe even better if i come over to the enclosure to watch them i have to open the doors if i don't they will literally jump right into the glass because they like to play they like to play like no reptile i've ever seen not even gus gus is this enthusiastic about coming out the funny thing is you can't reach in and grab them they have to come to you and they genuinely want to come to you it's just unreal so rad i seriously think this is the best pet lizard if we can establish them captive bread and i'd really like to explain why i think that's the case first off these lizards are a very very reasonable size and being a small lizard is a big deal it's just that small lizards are usually very shy and difficult to handle and they're also not very robust these guys are robust and obviously not shy at all also because they're small they're fairly cheap and and easy to feed as long as you have access to some insect feeders they're also beautiful almost abronia level beautiful and that's madness they're active active in the enclosure active with you they're at least as active as really any other lizards you're gonna keep and they do well in groups which really opens the door to a whole lot of really interesting interaction because they're not that big their enclosure which i mean this is a enclosure that's plenty big for a small group of these lizards it fits in less than five square feet of space and almost everybody has five square feet of space it's not the case for gus gus the enclosure can also be exceedingly beautiful it is no kind of eyesore this is a very functional enclosure but i think it's also an extremely beautiful enclosure but more than anything it's their ridiculously amazing personality as i've said not even gus gus is this interested in interacting with me and he does want to come out and interact with you but not like this and it isn't even food they will eat off of tongs but they'll walk right past food to come out and play i just honestly have no explanation for why these lizards are like this i don't understand it and this is the best kind of relationship to have with a lizard this isn't a lizard that tolerates handling honestly like i said before if you reach in to grab them okay they never do that they run away usually okay apparently this relationship just keeps getting even better this is ridiculous i love these lizards but they genuinely want to be with you they're like a dog it's insane even if they end up on the ground which every now and then they will jump to the ground they don't run away they don't hide which is what i would expect a small skink to do they just sort of hang out there and eventually they hop back onto you they're awesome mostly though they seem to just want to sit on your shoulder or your head and just be with you and everything is on their terms i don't even worry about over handling them because they don't come if they don't want to but so often they just hop right onto you i figure if it's up to them they're having a good time it is just so unusual for any lizard and it's just absurd for a small lizard i genuinely think that these lizards should be the next big thing in the reptile hobby not long ago we made a list of the ultimate pet reptiles and on that my ultimate small pet lizard was the ackee however this one might be taking its place we'll just have to look and see but there's a big if on that one these lizards are doing very very well in the wild but wild caught is not going to be sustainable if these guys become stupendously popular it's just not the way to go plus the health of the animals when they're wild caught it just won't be as good as if they were captive bred and that honestly has been the reason that a number of lizards that would have been awesome pets never really became a big deal one of them that comes to mind very quickly are step runners they appeared to be incredible but they were just too difficult to breed and so they basically disappeared from the hobby and so that could be the reason that these lizards which are unbelievable captives maybe never become a thing and disappear here in a few years so how is captive breeding going we have eggs i'd read that this was the case but just like geckos they lay two eggs at a time we've only got our first clutch but apparently they can lay multiple clutches in a year maybe up to about eight or nine clutches and so far those eggs are developing very very well i'm also seeing evidence of other people who are having success breeding these incredible little lizards they've been bred in europe for a while looks like the proper incubation temperature and it's the one that we're using is 83 degrees fahrenheit which is 29 degrees celsius like i said so far so good there is a reason that you shouldn't count your skinks until they've hatched but i am cautiously optimistic that we are going to be successful with these little eggs if you have any info about the breeding or care of this species please let me know i am especially interested in any morphs that might exist unless you are an experienced lizard breeder please only buy these lizards from a breeder captive bread but if these turn out to be as easy to breed as they're rumored to be and as they seem to be so far i think this is the next big thing we'll keep you updated on these guys going forward click the little bell so when updates come about these guys or other rad reptiles that you might be interested in as always like and subscribe and we hope to see you real soon [Music] great you

Channel: Clint's Reptiles

Views: 144,421

Keywords: the best pet lizard, the best pet reptile, the best pet skink, emerald tree skink, green tree skink, skink care, day gecko, personable lizard, enclosure build, bioactive, vivarium, terrarium, clean up crew, green keeled lizard, green tree monitor, DIY bioactive enclosure, ackie monitor, tegu, anole, gecko, lizard care, lizard enclosure, blue tongue skink, pink tongue skink, bearded dragon, drainage layer, picking a lizard, easy pet, beginner pet, skink, cute lizard, reptile

Id: lUc4SEl4XeU

Length: 12min 0sec (720 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 24 2020