Ok, so maybe he's not really wild, but I'll let y'all decide.
My name's Daryl, I'm 25, and I'm on my third leopard gecko. I got my first one about 5 years ago, and he lived for about 4 before *****'s advice to use loose sand substrate did him in (that's my best guess anyways, I didn't know any better at the time). I got my second one about 6 months ago. He was a little shit, so I named him Loki. He enjoyed sleeping with his hands above his head, sometimes even his back legs. He tried that trick next to the water dish against the glass on the third or fourth night I had him, and he faceplanted into the water dish and apparently didn't realize it. Whoops :main_thumbsdown:.
Anyways, onto my third. I live in Southern California out in the desert, in a very arid climate. There's a 1000 foot tall mountain behind my house that I often hike up at night when it's cooler. Last night I slapped on my stylish LED headlamp and started up the mountain as usual, enjoying the usual bevy of scorpions that come out at night to play. I was almost to the top when I saw something scurry away near the edge of my light's reach. I thought it was a mouse at first, so I went closer to investigate. That's when I saw the telltale ungainly pimp-swagger of a leopard gecko. Now, I'm no fool, I know they don't live on this continent in the wild, so I was bugging out. I had called my local pet stores about two weeks ago to see if they had any adult leopards, so I thought I might be hallucinating out of desire. I went right up to him, and in true leopard fashion he didn't budge, just kinda looked at me like "sup." I picked him up, and he didn't even struggle. I put him back down, more convinced that I wasn't dreaming, but still... I was about 700 feet up, about a mile horizontal from the nearest house, and even then the housing is fairly sparse. The mountain is littered with huge lizards, snakes of all sorts, tons of raptors and owls, big skinks, and 1-2" scorpions- how the hell did this bugger get so far without getting munched?? He's about 3-3.5" if he was stretched out straight, so I'm guessing he's around 3-4 months old. I wrapped him up gently in my shirt and descended slowly, but even then he only tried to escape twice in about 20 minutes. So there you have it, a free leopard gecko from the desert of Southern California.
Has anything this ridiculous happened to anyone else? Ever found a leopard just waltzing about, far from houses in a fairly unnatural setting (the mountain resembles what I've seen of Pakistan/Afghanistan, only there is absolutely no moisture in the ground- every plant has been dead for at least 2-3 months). Some pics attached of him in his new home, sorry they're from a camera phone.
-Daryl Bulloch
My name's Daryl, I'm 25, and I'm on my third leopard gecko. I got my first one about 5 years ago, and he lived for about 4 before *****'s advice to use loose sand substrate did him in (that's my best guess anyways, I didn't know any better at the time). I got my second one about 6 months ago. He was a little shit, so I named him Loki. He enjoyed sleeping with his hands above his head, sometimes even his back legs. He tried that trick next to the water dish against the glass on the third or fourth night I had him, and he faceplanted into the water dish and apparently didn't realize it. Whoops :main_thumbsdown:.
Anyways, onto my third. I live in Southern California out in the desert, in a very arid climate. There's a 1000 foot tall mountain behind my house that I often hike up at night when it's cooler. Last night I slapped on my stylish LED headlamp and started up the mountain as usual, enjoying the usual bevy of scorpions that come out at night to play. I was almost to the top when I saw something scurry away near the edge of my light's reach. I thought it was a mouse at first, so I went closer to investigate. That's when I saw the telltale ungainly pimp-swagger of a leopard gecko. Now, I'm no fool, I know they don't live on this continent in the wild, so I was bugging out. I had called my local pet stores about two weeks ago to see if they had any adult leopards, so I thought I might be hallucinating out of desire. I went right up to him, and in true leopard fashion he didn't budge, just kinda looked at me like "sup." I picked him up, and he didn't even struggle. I put him back down, more convinced that I wasn't dreaming, but still... I was about 700 feet up, about a mile horizontal from the nearest house, and even then the housing is fairly sparse. The mountain is littered with huge lizards, snakes of all sorts, tons of raptors and owls, big skinks, and 1-2" scorpions- how the hell did this bugger get so far without getting munched?? He's about 3-3.5" if he was stretched out straight, so I'm guessing he's around 3-4 months old. I wrapped him up gently in my shirt and descended slowly, but even then he only tried to escape twice in about 20 minutes. So there you have it, a free leopard gecko from the desert of Southern California.
Has anything this ridiculous happened to anyone else? Ever found a leopard just waltzing about, far from houses in a fairly unnatural setting (the mountain resembles what I've seen of Pakistan/Afghanistan, only there is absolutely no moisture in the ground- every plant has been dead for at least 2-3 months). Some pics attached of him in his new home, sorry they're from a camera phone.
-Daryl Bulloch
