Tokay color

[The Snark]

Seen in it's natural environment, as on this jackfruit tree, it's coloration makes sense.

 

[AmysAnimals]

Awesome! =) I love Tokays! I wanted to own one a few years ago when I was younger but I thought I was too inexperienced to own such an aggressive species.

 

[The Snark]

Tokay aggressiveness

From observing, I've reached the hypothesis that a tokay introduced into an environment will always run and hide when confronted. A tokay that acts aggressive or hostile is stressed and doesn't feel it can put sufficient proximity between itself and a deemed threat. A tokay in a large enough habitat with sufficient hides will never attack anything it doesn't consider food.

From observing six tokay's over the past couple of years, an adult wants at least 6 cubic feet of 'private' space. The runway, accessible area in our carport with a small access hole is about 7 1/2 cubic feet. I have reached up in there with various tokays in residence and have never been munched. When I reduced the area to 5 cubic feet I got munched twice. Expanding that to 6 cubic feet, the attacks ceased.

What is interesting is I have seen tokays on three occasions go intro predator stalking mode while watching our large rats. These rats are about 16" to 18" long including the tail and weigh 1 to 2 pounds. However they very rarely attack such a large animal. So it really takes a lot to provoke a tokay into a purely defensive attack when in a natural habitat and they are very calculating predators, fully aware of their capabilities and limitations. Being stressed over-rides their innate caution.

 

[AmysAnimals]

That's interesting information! I always read they were so aggressive and would bite and things like that. That was a few years ago.
It makes sense to give them a lot of space though.

 

[Masurai]

Looks great in it's natural habitat

 

[happysmile88]

Unnatural Tokays [Linky]
probably already read this

 

[Masurai]

Some of those are nice. I hope we can get more morphs of tokays. It would be nice to have a lot to pick from like with ball pythons and corn snakes.

 

[Stan Schultz]

... From observing six tokay's over the past couple of years, an adult wants at least 6 cubic feet of 'private' space. The runway, accessible area in our carport with a small access hole is about 7 1/2 cubic feet. I have reached up in there with various tokays in residence and have never been munched. When I reduced the area to 5 cubic feet I got munched twice. Expanding that to 6 cubic feet, the attacks ceased.

What is interesting is I have seen tokays on three occasions go intro predator stalking mode while watching our large rats. These rats are about 16" to 18" long including the tail and weigh 1 to 2 pounds. However they very rarely attack such a large animal. So it really takes a lot to provoke a tokay into a purely defensive attack when in a natural habitat and they are very calculating predators, fully aware of their capabilities and limitations. Being stressed over-rides their innate caution.

Not being a reptile guy at the moment, I'm only going to pop in with a quick comment, then pop back out again.

This post makes the current daydreaming about the personalities and intelligence of dinosaurs and the other giant reptiles of the days of yore much more believable.

A little bit of trivia: Several decades ago I stayed overnight in a beach cabana on the shores of the Indian Ocean on Kuta Beach near Denpasar, Bali. I was kept awake for a large part of the night by the barking Tokays in the surrounding palm trees. I never actually saw a wild one, however.

Enjoy your little, 4-footed, orange spotted dragons!

 

[The Snark]

Not being a reptile guy at the moment, I'm only going to pop in with a quick comment, then pop back out again.

This post makes the current daydreaming about the personalities and intelligence of dinosaurs and the other giant reptiles of the days of yore much more believable.

A little bit of trivia: Several decades ago I stayed overnight in a beach cabana on the shores of the Indian Ocean on Kuta Beach near Denpasar, Bali. I was kept awake for a large part of the night by the barking Tokays in the surrounding palm trees. I never actually saw a wild one, however.

Enjoy your little, 4-footed, orange spotted dragons!

While I am clueless of the theories regarding dinosaurs, it seems obvious to me that many animals have operational parameters that to the casual observer appears to be quasi intelligent rational thinking. Many of these parameters have evolved over the eons. Some may be evolutionary dead ends that are still stuck in the genetic code while others may be so alien to us, possibly derived from some unusual circumstance during the evolution, that it is virtually impossible for us to understand.

Want to be kept up at night? From experience, a tokay barking in a 55 gallon metal drum (it obviously chose for the reverb qualities) is quite impressive.

 

[Stan Schultz]

While I am clueless of the theories regarding dinosaurs, ...

If one can believe the television documentaries, the dinosaurs, pterosaurs, etc. merely were early versions of what we have today in Africa. Imagine all the African megafauna with feathers or scales. Those "primitive" reptiles would migrate in immense herds like wildebeest, hunt in packs like lions, have the problem solving capacities of dogs, and apparently roost like penguins. Many apparently also lived in family groups like wolves.

The one aspect of all this hypothesizing involves the arctic and sub-arctic species. The experts would have us believe that the north polar region was a lot warmer than it is now (believable), but suffered several months of below freezing weather during the dead of winter when the sun was either very low along the horizon, or below the horizon (also believable). During these periods the mega-reptiles were either supposed to migrate south to warmer climes, or hibernate. And, that 's where I get into trouble.

I have a big enough problem wrapping my mind around the concept of a migratory duck-billed dinosaur (for instance) in the high Arctic, even if it is a much warmer Arctic than what we have today. These were creatures with a body mass somewhere between that of a modern day rhinoceros and a modern day elephant. And, I have a big problem imagining something that big marching 5,000 to 10,000 kilometers south in autumn, then returning over the same route and the same distance again in the spring. In herds of tens of thousands.

Let's do a little arithmetic. If they would march 5,000 km in 5 weeks, that would be 1,000 km a week, or 1,000/7 = ~143 km/day. If they marched 16 hours a day, they would have to hoof it steadily at the rate of 143/16 = ~9 kph. Even if you juggle the numbers a little (or a lot), such a trek might be possible. But, that strains the imagination a bit.

But, the kicker is the hypothesis that many of those species hibernated up there during winter. Now, here is where it gets really difficult. Where did they hibernate? Out on the tundra? Covered with snow? A reptile? With apparently little or no body covering like fur or feathers to protect them from frostbite? Or, are the experts thinking that I'm going to believe that these megaton beasts hibernated in dens or caves like polar bear? If so, where are all those dens and caves? And, they'd have to be ginormous caverns to hold something even the size of a hippopotamus much less an African elephant! We have a serious credibility issue here, I think. Obviously more work has to be done...

... it seems obvious to me that many animals have operational parameters that to the casual observer appears to be quasi intelligent rational thinking. Many of these parameters have evolved over the eons. ...

And ultimately, we think of it as "intelligence," and pride ourselves at how good we are at it.

... Some may be evolutionary dead ends that are still stuck in the genetic code while others may be so alien to us, possibly derived from some unusual circumstance during the evolution, that it is virtually impossible for us to understand. ...

I can't agree with you more. In fact, in reference to possible tarantula intelligence I have often made a parallel reference to Douglas Adam's white mice in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I'm not crazy enough to think that tarantulas are really intergalactic super-beings in disguise, but I have the opinion that we really don't recognize or understand their limited intelligence.

... Want to be kept up at night? From experience, a tokay barking in a 55 gallon metal drum (it obviously chose for the reverb qualities) is quite impressive.

I can only imagine!

 

[Furret]

Mind = blown