Industry Spotlight: Frank Payne

HM: What was your initial draw to lizards that drove you to primarily focus on them?

FP: I’m originally from Texas and I spent the early part of my childhood and every summer there. I think my interest in reptiles began with the fact that there were so many anoles and geckos in my backyard for me to watch and catch. My dad was also a big aquarium enthusiast and the one shop we went in to regularly in Houston also occasionally had reptiles. The first time I saw a large planted terrarium full of chameleons in that shop, I was hooked forever. It’s cliche, but that day is literally ingrained in my mind forever, even though it was nearly thirty years ago. It had that much of an impact on me.

I love snakes and other reptiles, but the diversity of features and behaviors in lizards cannot be matched in my mind.

HM: How many species are you working with currently?

FP: I am breeding or working on breeding around ten species at the moment. My main projects are the electric blue gecko (Lygodactylus williamsi), carpet chameleons (Furcifer lateralis), lesser chameleons (Furcifer minor), Northern blue tongue skinks (Tiliqua scincoides intermedia), and jeweled lacertas (Timon lepidus). I am also working with spotted flying lizards (Draco maculatus), spearpoint leaf tail geckos (Uroplatus ebenaui), Peter’s banded skinks (Scincopus fasciatus), rough knob tailed geckos (Nephrurus amyae), and gargoyle geckos (Rhacodactylus auriculatus). I do have a few other odds and ends, but I try to limit that these days and only keep that which I plan to breed over multiple generations.

HM: Which have proven to be the most challenging?

FP: I have produced hundreds of carpet and minor chameleons, but they still throw curveballs in the breeding process. Females, especially of Furcifer minor, can be very delicate when gravid and going through the egg laying process.

The flying lizards have proven surprisingly easy to keep and breed, but raising the babies has been a real challenge. I do have babies that I produced nearing half grown, but my success rate at raising babies is still very low. On the other hand, my success rate with wild caught adults has been very high. The adults mate, lay eggs, and the babies hatch without difficulty; but the babies often fail to thrive. Based on my conversations with the one other breeder of Draco in the states, my problem may be as simple as diet. His babies do not readily accept fruit flies, but do well on pinhead crickets. His survival rate of captive bred babies is much better than mine. I will make that adjustment for future clutches. At the time of this article, I have two gravid females.

I have not produced any of the Peter’s banded skinks yet, although I still feel as if I’m in early stages with them. As far as I’m aware, no one has produced them in the USA and only two people have done so worldwide. I find sexing these animals to be extremely problematic and I think that people generally can’t sex them accurately despite claims to the contrary. I have a feeling they will become more straightforward to breed once accurate sexing is more common and seasonal cycling is provided. We’ll see. I could be eating those words five years from now.

HM: How did you come to get into the flying lizards?

FP: I have always been attracted to working with species that haven’t been figured out yet, at least not on a large scale. Keeping the Draco was pretty coincidental. I was at a reptile show outside Baltimore and  saw a large group of them that actually looked to be in decent shape. It seemed like a good opportunity to give that genus a real shot. Since I am a long time chameleon keeper, I feel very comfortable acclimating wild caught, delicate, arboreal lizards.

HM: Do you see those getting easier to keep as more captive bred generations come about?

FP: That’s definitely hard to say, but I do think they will. Speaking with the one other current breeder in the states it seems that, when done correctly, captive bred babies are very hardy. In my experience, once wild caught and captive bred babies are well established they are very hardy and straightforward to keep. They will never be a beginner species, but I don’t find them to be any more difficult than chameleons.

HM: Out of all the chameleon species out there, why carpet chameleons?

FP: Carpet chameleons are easily my favorite species of chameleon. I could go on about them for pages, but I will try to contain myself. They tick so many boxes that I think they should be the most popular pet chameleon species bar none. First, they’re extremely colorful- easily one of the most variable and beautiful of all animal species. Their small size makes them perfect terrarium inhabitants. An adult animal can live its whole life comfortably in an eighteen inch cube glass terrarium, which can be beautifully planted.

That small size equates to less space needed, and therefore less money spent on enclosures, lighting, and feeders. As captive bred, they are just as hardy as any other chameleon species out there. They are extremely prolific and make for a very rewarding breeding project. Carpets can be sexually mature in as little as three to six months! Males can breed without problem as soon as ready, but I never breed females before six months. People often cite the short lifespan of carpets (3 years) as being a draw back to the species, but my good friend and fellow carpet chameleon breeder Tim Marks, pointed out that this is how long hamsters live and they are one of the most popular pets in the world! Also, based on conversations with other keepers around the world, it seems their lifespan can be significantly prolonged (5 years or more) if they are kept cooler, fed less, and not bred too often. Basically keep them more like crested geckos and as a pet (not breeding) and they will live longer!

HM: Were those ever popular? I don’t recall seeing many for sale on a regular basis.

FP: I think they’ve always been popular as far as chameleons go, but only as wild caught. Thousands have been imported into the states. Unfortunately, pretty much only one person, my good friend Kevin Stanford, took them seriously and put the effort into breeding them over multiple generations. Kevin was very successful breeding them, producing up to two hundred a year for a while, but he was basically the only one doing it. After getting captive bred carpets from Kevin as well as some wild caught lines of my own, I recognized their untapped potential in the hobby and made a point to get as much exposure on them as possible. It seems that I’ve been at least somewhat successful doing that and I hope to push their popularity even further.

HM: What advice would you give to someone who has an interest in a species that doesn’t have a lot of info or other people working with it?

FP: First, I would say to make sure that you have enough experience to take on something like that. I think it’s very important that keepers first become proficient at keeping and breeding more commonly kept species before attempting something that is more of an unknown quantity. I’ve found that the experience gained and the best practices learned from keeping more commonly kept species translates surprisingly well to less common species. After gaining experience with more common species, researching the species’ natural habitat and niche as much as possible is extremely important when taking on something less common. So much of the animal’s health and ability to thrive depends on the keeper imitating its natural habitat as closely as possible. There’s tons of weather data out there, and Google scholar can be your friend finding papers on similar species or genera.

HM: Do you think more people should pursue some of these species that haven’t had a lot of attention in collections?

FP: I definitely do. Reptilia is an extremely diverse class of life, and as keepers we still have access to a large diversity of species. I don’t think that’s going to last. We have seen it in the trade many times already that once commonly imported species become restricted, they disappear from the trade. This will only increase as time goes on. If it does, the diversity of captive collections and the knowledge gained from that diversity will bottleneck. It only takes one or two devoted individuals to keep a niche species going in the trade. I can speak from experience that the knowledge and even reputation gained from doing this is invaluable.

HM: Last question, what do you wish there was more of in the hobby? Whether it’s a species, a mentality, a way of keeping, what would it be?

FP: There’s definitely a lot I would like to see changed, but I think the thing that is most personal to me is to see people focus more. I have been as guilty as anyone of wanting two of everything, but I have found the most fulfillment from working with at least ten individuals of a species and breeding them generation after generation. The more individuals you have of a species and the more generations that you have produced, the more you will know about them. I have been keeping and breeding chameleons for most of my life, but I still learn more every single year. The reason I keep learning more each year is because I am seeing their entire life cycle play out time and time again. If I was simply keeping two at a time, I wouldn’t know a fraction of what I do. I really can’t emphasize enough how rewarding that is. It doesn’t even have to be a rare species, it can be leopard geckos or ball pythons, but pick one species that you are truly passionate about and stick with them.