Monique 144/365

I hope nobody’s sick of creepy-crawly pics! I got to go “to town” and see
what became of the biggest pet store in Missoula after it was sold last
year. The changes are drastic indeed, but while I was there I had carte
blanche to open any tank and handle any critter willing to tolerate me. I
did take out a baby ball python for a moment, but not this adorable little
critter. It’s either a leopard gecko or the closely-related African
fat-tailed gecko (silly me was too busy with that face to read the tank) in
a patternless variety. My neighbor was with, and after five minutes with
their adult male bearded dragon and an hour researching colors once I told
him that oh yes there are LOTS of different colors in beardies, he’s got his
heart set on an ‘autumn red’ morph, which we might get to see in person
depending on how the gal answers his email—he found a breeder who is almost
certainly going to be easy for us to reach in a couple of weeks; her contact
phone area code is now restricted to only a small part of Oregon, and it’s a
part we’ll be in for at least a week…