let's just call him "l'il jumper"

well the little guy has gotten big in the last couple of days.  I finally figured out how to get him to eat crickets.

when I first put him in there, I cleaned the tank after bonnie and clyde left, and threw out their substrate [to stave off any parasitic infection threat] and changed to paper towels.  the reason being that the crickets can burrow into the sawdust [not really sawdust, but like the stuff that you use with hampsters] and then munch on the little guy at night.  and, its easier to replace every day which also keeps things nice and clean.

well, the damn crickets would hide under the paper towels and the little guy couldn't see them to eat them.  and, the paper towels being white and the crickets being dusted with calcium powder made it doubly worse. 

so I decided that during the day, after he's had some salad and [hopefully] taken a poop, I can pull the towels out and leave the bare bottom of the tank for the day.  that way, the little crickets don't have too many places to hide.  then, every evening before bedtime, I catch all the uneaten crickets, wipe out the bottom of the tank with a moist paper towel, and replace the paper towels.  When he gets big enough and has developed his eye-mouth coordination, then he'll get a different substrate.  When he's an adult, he's only going to get crickets once a week, but I'm more inclined to give them up altogether and do worms or pinkies instead because of the parasitic danger.  crickets aren't the cleanest food option.

the bare tank seems to be working.  he's eaten about 2 dozen crickets a day.  and he is getting bigger around the middle.  he still does his munching on the sly, however.  as long as I'm not looking, he'll go a hunting.  but if I even glance in there, he notices and gets a little skittish. 

we still have afternoon olympic high jump practice with the thermometer.  there's a little piece of silicone that is on the edge of the tank at the top -- I'm pretty sure he's doing this because he thinks its something to eat.  I would remove it, but the jumping practice is good exercise and good to develop his reflexes.  he'll probably figure it out and get bored.

he's sleeping on the high branch again tonight.  last night, I was up until 2am hammering out my final exam on the computer, and I kept waking the little guy up.  I want him to get used to me working after lights out, though, because that is my life.  I usually hit the sack between 11p and midnight, so I hope he gets used to "twilight" from 8 till then.  just glad I got him young, so he'll just think of it as normal [I hope].

promising pictures soon, but the camera is malfunctioning.  maybe its from hitting it on the rocks in joshua tree, but the focus is all wrong and the digital capture is off from what is in the viewfinder.