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Morsel Sahells Mom Morsel Zenmetsu Morsel Morsel |
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Morsel View Profile |
Molly the Mali goes to the vet...
Okay, so it’s probably not worthy of a whole short story narrative to go into the details of how Molly goes about her days and nights. I made an appointment yesterday, having had her for a week and noticed some behaviors that were concerning to me. She was being a bit picky with her food, she had some weird discharge coming from her nostrils, it was more noticible in the mornings when she wandered about after sleeping. So, I made the appointment and brought her to the vet. I was fortunate enough to find one of the best herp vets in the city, someone who works a lot with the zoo as well as the Desert Museum which is like a zoo, garden, preservation type place. So he knows his reptiles. At first he thought Molly was a male, she’s very dark colored and had pretty big pores but turned out she was a girl afterall when he had to (wince) get a fresh stool sample from her bum. He was able to examine her a little more closely then, he was very gentle and such. So the slides turned out perfect, no parasites, no weird bacteria, perfectly healthy and grumpy uro. The nasal discharge I was so worried about is actually a Uromastyx adaptation. It’s a salt/phosphorus secretion and how I described the color and the texture of it he was able to verify that it was in fact just perfectly natural and healthy secretions. It’s white and grainy looking stuff, it’s just the Uro’s way of getting rid of those extra things their body doesn’t need. She’s a "beautiful healthy lizard" according to the veterinarian and I even got some list of wild and native growing varieties of plants that are edible that are easy enough to find out in the desert or in a nursery etc. Apperantly she’s also ’nice’ and pretty calm while being held. I wouldn’t necessarily call her tame though, she still hisses and carries on at times. She doesn’t mind being held so much as long as it’s for a short period, she’s pretty interested in things, licking at just about everything etc (I got my ear licked while I was listening to her breathing sounds last night). So all is well and I think I have this forum to thank for the plethora of information I’ve been provided with as well as the support, even if it’s just been a single week of ownership, I think I’ll be good for the long run with this girl.
PS. Believe it or not, she’s gotten darker since this image. It must be that she’s finally under some good decent lighting and has gotten some nice color. She was absolutely DRAB when I first got her. |
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| 05/08/08 05:51pm |
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Sahells Mom View Profile |
Message To: Morsel In reference to Message Id: 1729574 Molly the Mali goes to the vet...
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| 05/08/08 08:57pm |
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Morsel View Profile |
Message To: Sahells Mom In reference to Message Id: 1729793 Molly the Mali goes to the vet...
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| 05/09/08 03:35pm |
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Zenmetsu View Profile |
Message To: Morsel In reference to Message Id: 1730403 Molly the Mali goes to the vet...
Personally, I prefer messing with the RGB levels and getting it back to normal. The problem is that each light source is vastly different on it’s spectral output. The human brain automatically balances the colors, but cameras are stupid :) Also, which city do you live in? You said you were in the Desert area. I currently live in Phoenix. To Uro_fan, the mention of the colors brings up a question that I had a long time ago and never bothered to ask. I figure that Uros can see color as they are very attracted to yellow flowers. If they do have color vision, do you know if they are mono, di, or trichromats? I have actually tried to determine this by using natural variation in food colors (red, orange and yellow lentils... and blue/violet flowers. My uro seems to be able to distinguish blues well but shows no preference between red and orange. I suppose using light filters might be a more accurate way of doing this. |
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| 05/11/08 02:35pm |
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Morsel View Profile |
Message To: Zenmetsu In reference to Message Id: 1732018 Molly the Mali goes to the vet...
I did mess with that stuff and all, it’s my kodak digi cam not letting me fix anything else. I know how to fix the levels and such but I just kind of left it where it looks aesthetically pleasing even if it’s not necessarily ’true color’ for Molly. I think the UV light had a lot of influence on the greenish color. The UVB portion of the bulb does emit a greenish looking beam while the heated light portion is more of a warmer orange. Or maybe I’m just weird and I can see both of the lights at work in my little MVB. I really like the strong contrast of her markings though, which led to her being mislabeled as a male at first by the vet. She’s just a pretty gal. I’ve read up a little bit about reptiles and vision and it seems that Uro’s both have rods and cones and all of the right oils to pick up on colors. I think they have pretty great eyesight too, I’ve noticed mine watching me from across the room and she seems to know when it’s treat time even when she’s on her far end of the tank. They definately respond well to yellow, there’s some mention of them being able to see a little farther into the UV light spectrum, kind of like bees, so they might have a different response to those. I guess without available UV light though that really hurts their ability to filter out colors, they need that ’natural’ sunlight. It would be interesting to see some more research done exclusively on Uros as far as that’s concerned. |
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| 05/13/08 12:56pm |
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Morsel View Profile |
Message To: Morsel In reference to Message Id: 1734054 Molly the Mali goes to the vet...
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| 05/13/08 01:02pm |
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