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| Name: |
Franky
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Age: |
Six years old
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| Gender: |
Male
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Kind: |
Jackson's Chameleon
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| Home: |
Kaimuki, Hawaii, USA
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A
friend caught young Franky boy in Manoa Valley and wasn't able to take care
of him so gave him to me when he was only a few months old. Franky eats only
live bugs, is happy tame and likes exercise by climbing up and down an
avocado tree in my backyard! He drinks water from a spray bottle.
Franky has a great personality, he's usually in a good mood, and rarely
cranky. He's gentle and quiet, and his favorite TV shows are Friends and
Animal Planet, although I often try to remind him that shows like Friends is
a little bit unrealistic; rents are too high in Manhattan for a lizard to
live in a large apartment, especially if his only form of employment is
working in a coffee shop. And besides, Franky is a tropical boy: east coast
winters are way too cold for him.
Franky knows so many tricks: let's see, he can change his body color and
pattern to match his mood, solid black (when he's grumpy), yellow, bluish,
green with black triangles and all green (when he's very happy). He can
also move his eyes independently, so that if he wants to he can look straight
ahead with one eye and straight backwards with the other. This way he can
focus on two different objects at once: such as bugs, tree branches, or
predators such as birds, snakes or cats. Another favorite trick is, he can
hang upside-down by his tail, which comes in really handy for climbing trees.
His favorite activities include climbing large trees, and hunting tasty
insects. But maybe his most amazing trick is, once he sees a bug that he
wants for lunch, he focuses both eyes on it, then in the blink of an eye, he
fires his long, sticky tongue out and catches the bug, and instantly reels it
back into his open mouth. The most amazing part of this trick is, the speed
and the distance: his tongue is about the same length as his body!
Chameleons are found naturally only in Africa and Madagascar. In the 1970's a
pet distributor imported some chameleons from Kenya, in eastern Africa, to
the island of Oahu in Hawaii, and let some go in his backyard. Today,
Jackson's chameleons live in the mountains of Oahu, eating snails and bugs,
and enjoying the pleasant tropical climate, and some say, occasionally
surfing at Waikiki Beach.
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