My husband and I have recently realized that we are more reptile people, than fuzzy critter. After acquiring a year old sulcata, and a leopard gecko, which we immediately fell in love, with we fancied ourselves a tegu. A week ago we purchased a 1 1/2 year old B&W Argentine Male. Though we have immediately fallen in love with our little Thetis, we have developed some concerns. Hopefully you can help us out a bit. We are wondering if we have bit off a little more than we can chew. 1st of all we are concerned about his size. We bought him from a pretty reputable reptile shop, and the owner told us his age is 1 1/2. However, he is only a little over 2', and am reading that that is very small for his age. We are in AZ so I do not believe he has hibernated, or even brumated before. Our second concern is his temperament. I have also been nervous about small lizards. I am very fearful of them being easily injured. For this reason we went for an older tegu who seems much more sturdy you could say. Now however, we are facing the fact that we have a untamed large lizard who can take our finger if he wanted. To be honest we find our selves being more afraid of him than I think he is of us. We are just not quite sure how to approach the situation. We have purchased sturdy gloves, and have been able to quickly grab him gently by his head and hold him for a bit. After a lot of squirming, he does eventually calm down. Is this the best way to tame a larger tegu? We are afraid to put our hands near his mouth to sniff us and get him used to our sent. Any advice would be much appreciated. Just a bit of extra info. He is in a 4x2x2 foot inclosure. He has his basking light and uvb light. We keep the temp at 80, and humidity 80-90%. Also, the tank is the pick is just his eating tank.
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