Last Thursday, our Bearded Dragons moved to new homes. No, they didn’t leave the museum, they just left their old terrariums and moved into Reptile Condominiums! These new cages are complete with many different platforms and perches, large sticks for climbing, reptile hammocks, small logs for hiding, all the calci-sand they could ever want, and even their own trap door that leads up to the “second floor” where they can bask under heat lamps and UVB lights. Yes, that’s right, these new homes have it all and our Bearded Dragons have really taken well to them!

Don’t get me wrong, though, the homes that they used to live in weren’t shabby by any means. But one of the perks for the animal keepers in getting these new cages is that we no longer have to move the Bearded Dragons to a separate sunning cage in the summer when we want to put them outside to soak up some sun. Now they can just be wheeled out in their own cages, which means its a good change for everyone involved.

As you can tell from the picture above these cages are pretty large, 4 feet tall and 3 feet wide to be exact. So far the Bearded Dragons have been using every inch of them as they climb to different levels, bask on different perches and even jump from place to place sometimes. It’s really good to see they have adjusted so well, because we spent a lot of time getting the new cages set up to be Bearded Dragon dream homes.

You may be wondering why you have never seen our Bearded Dragons on exhibit before. That’s because they live behind the scenes in our Reptile Holding Room where they can be used by educators for school programs or even visit a birthday party here at the museum. The picture to the left is of “Beardy Jr.” basking under a heat lamp. You can learn much more about Bearded Dragons in a previous post where “Godzilla” was the Creature Feature of the Month.

Want to see more animals that live behind the scenes? Click here for another previous post.