You are correct. They do have prehensile tails while varanids and heloderma do not for the most part. They're behavior is like a cacealeon, they're appearance like varanids, and share many similar traits to skinks also. I'm sure a more in depth study on its biology will be done after they're listed on CITIES I soon.
IDK about CITES.....if they behave like a Caecillian that would mean they are subterranean , so how do you take a consensus of a species rarely encountered? Gila Monsters were once classed as endangered until they finally realized people don't see them nearly as often as they would if they were terrestrial because they spend a large portion of their lives in burrows and typically only emerge at night
Yeah I do feed earth worms as a staple....but one female will only eat the betta fish. She doesn't touch anything else I offer and I don't know why.
They will be added to cities within the next few months... You are correct they are presumed to have a mostly subterranean lifestyle hence the very small eyes but recent palm oil developments have flushed them out of they're borrows which is why they are popping up suddenly after not being seen for almost 60 years. But nothing's proven yet just theories. I think they live underground in limestone streams as the cave system in Sarawak is extensive... They share many similarities with olm also
Have you tried canned Tuna, chicken, scrambled eggs or egg white, lean ground turkey, or fresh fish fillets? Sardine oil or Anchovy oil is rumored to be helpful for "scenting" new foods or just plain giving him a dish of a mixture of everything I mentioned scented w/ Betta slime or pre-frozen Betta chopped and mixed into the other foods?
I've tried it all. The other 3 I have eat pretty much anything that smells like food but one is particularly picky and didn't eat for almost 2 months after I picked her up. She was a very difficult specimen to establish and was in less than poor condition when I purchased her. I considered it a miracle she started eating at all. And what mommy likes mommy gets as she's still too inconsistent in appetite to wean her onto other things. I do out bowls of egg yolk out at night for them also.
They usually aren't hard to feed. Most eat anything that you try to give them after they've gotten settled to captivity. Some are super active and some won't move for a week straight staying in the same spot , so they probably don't need to take in as many calories.
I'm amazaed she won't touch egg....I wold just give her hard-boiled egg WHITE w/ vitamin/calcium supplement cooked into it (Yup, human AND reptile Chef here
), no yolk for a while or you can microwave it, just make sure it's cool when you feed it to them, nothing hot, obviously...If she NEEDS to fatten up a little yolk is cool, but you don't want to give her too much cholesterol, as with any lizard. You can also incorporate any of the previously mentioned foods into an "Omlette" for her with the egg whites. Have you tried captive-bred Tobbacco/Tomato Hornworms yet? WC hornworms are toxic from the leaves they eat, but in captivity they are ranked among the most nutritious and beneficial foods you can feed. 1 full-grown worm has been equivocated to 2 dozen crickets but no chitinous exoskeleton. How did you get ahold of these anyway? I never saw the Earless for saleyour guess is as good as mine, but I don't know how truly aquatic these guys really are......for ANY lizard, insects and invertebrates are always on the menu so i'd put more effort into them.....i'll almost bet $$$ it's a Bat-eater in the wild, or at least baby bats. Best bet is to study the fauna of the area they are from like you said though. Anything on the native list that's big enough to fit in their mouths is probably on their menu. Personally, I think the female is just going to be "one of those reptiles" that will never have the eating regiment you try to give her due to whatever reasons she was in bad shape and for how long.
