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Monday 11am - 3pm Tuesday 11am - 6pm Wednesday 11am - 6pm Friday 11am - 6pm Saturday 11am - 6pm Sunday 12pm - 5pm

Beasties, 4104 Outlook Boulevard Suite 137, Pueblo, CO (2026)

09/05/2026

Roly-Poly Revolution: The Amazing World of Isopods!
Southern Colorado, did you know that the familiar little "roly-polies" you used to find under rocks in the backyard have completely taken over the exotic pet hobby?

Check out these incredible photos we snapped of the Skewbald (Porcellio scaber) isopods currently hanging out in the shop! While isopods are famous for being the ultimate "Clean-Up Crew" in bioactive reptile tanks, an explosion of breathtaking designer morphs has made them incredibly popular as standalone display pets.

Fun fact: Isopods aren't actually insects at all! They are terrestrial crustaceans, meaning they are closely related to crabs and shrimp, and they actually breathe through modified gills on their undersides!

The Beasties Bug Lineup
Whether you are looking for a bioactive cleaning crew or a fun new desktop pet, the variety is endless:

- The Skewbald (Porcellio scaber): The stars of our photos! These guys are hardy, bold, and boast a beautiful, highly variable blotched pattern of whites, browns, oranges, and blacks.

- The Dairy Cow (Porcellio laevis): One of the most famous isopods in the hobby! They are large, active, and sport a striking white body covered in random black splotches, looking exactly like tiny Holstein cows.

- The Dwarf White (Trichorhina tomentosa): The ultimate bioactive clean-up crew. They are tiny, spend all their time burrowed in the soil, and actually clone themselves without needing males!

The Moisture Gradient
Because they breathe through gills, keeping them in our dry high-prairie climate is the most important part of their care. You have to ditch the open-screen tanks!

- The Bin: Standalone cultures thrive in plastic storage bins (shoebox size) with very small, controlled ventilation holes drilled into the sides.

- The Gradient: You cannot make the whole bin wet, or they will drown! You must create a "wet side" (a large handful of damp sphagnum moss on one end taking up about 25% of the space) and leave the other 75% of the soil completely dry. They will travel to the wet moss to breathe and rehydrate, but will use the dry side to forage and shed their exoskeletons!

The Recycler Diet (Don't Forget the Protein!)
For an isopod, their substrate is both their home and their primary food source!

- The Edible Dirt: Standard potting soil won't work. They need a rich base of organic topsoil and decayed hardwood, completely covered in a thick layer of hardwood leaf litter (like Oak or Magnolia).

- Building Shells: Because they are crustaceans, they need calcium to build their exoskeletons! We recommend mixing in crushed eggshells or leaving a piece of cuttlebone on the dirt.

- The Cannibal Risk: Fast-breeding, active species like our Skewbalds and Dairy Cows are incredibly protein-hungry. If you don't supplement their diet with high-quality fish flakes, freeze-dried minnows, or a specialized bug diet, they will actually eat their own babies!

Stop by Beasties, a Pet Store and More!! this week to see these amazing little crustaceans in action. Our invertebrate team is ready to walk you through setting up the perfect, perfectly hydrated isopod bin for your desk or reptile enclosure!

09/04/2026

Soak up the last weekend of summer with Beasties' Labor Day Weekend Sale!

Join us this Friday through Monday (Sept 4th - 7th) to find your next scaly, slithery, or amphibious friend.

- ALL animals start at 10% off!
- Stop in-store to uncover even DEEPER discounts!

Whether you are looking for a fascinating Cuban False Chameleon, a beautiful Boa, or a fun little Dart Frog, we have something for everyone.

(Note: Feeders are not included in this sale).

Come celebrate the long weekend with us and find your new best friend!

09/01/2026

The Outback's Tiger: Meet the Woma Python!
Southern Colorado, get ready to meet an incredibly unique, highly active, and visually stunning snake from the arid deserts of central and western Australia! Recognizable by their distinct, tiger-like banding and their pronounced "eyebrow" scales (designed to keep sand out of their eyes like little built-in safety goggles!), the Woma Python (Aspidites ramsayi) is an absolute showstopper.

The Missing Heat Pits
If you look closely at the photo we snapped of the boy in our shop, you'll notice they completely lack the heat-sensing facial pits that almost all other pythons have. Why? Because they evolved to hunt cold-blooded reptiles, like large lizards and other snakes (even highly venomous ones!), rather than warm-blooded mammals. They simply don't need thermal vision when they are hunting a cold-blooded meal!

The Legendary "Woma Feeding Response"
Woma pythons have legendary appetites! You don't have to worry about these guys going off food or being picky! At the same time, they are also very docile, inquisitive, and handle-able outside of feeding time. This combination is what makes them favorites among many keepers.

The Southern Colorado Advantage
Because they are true desert dwellers that naturally inhabit sand plains and dunes, they actually thrive in the naturally dry, high-desert climate of Southern Colorado!

- Low Humidity: They love our ambient humidity, meaning standard screen-topped enclosures work flawlessly for home care. High humidity is actually dangerous for them!

- The Spa Day (Humid Hide): Even desert snakes need a little moisture! When it comes time to shed you can offer a dedicated hide with lightly damp moss for them to soak up some moisture in preparation for shedding.

- Bulldozing Space: These guys are absolutely fantastic diggers! Give them a deep 3- to 4-inch layer of Reptisoil mixed with Stone Desert so they can bulldoze and burrow to their heart's content.

The "Sausage" Risk
In captivity, they will eagerly accept mice and rats. However, rodents are essentially the fast food of their world compared to the lean lizards Womas hunt in the wild!

- Because they have a bottomless appetite, Womas are highly prone to getting a little too chunky (obesity and fatty liver disease) in captivity.

- At Beasties we will help teach you about practicing portion control to keep your hungry pal at a healthy weight. If your adult snake's body begins to look like a perfectly round sausage rather than retaining a slightly triangular, muscular shape, it is time to space out those meals!

Stop by Beasties, a Pet Store and More!! this week to meet these incredible Australian hunters! Our reptile team is ready to walk you through exactly how to set up the perfect arid, deep-substrate burrowing enclosure for your home.

08/29/2026

Embrace the Dark Side: The Darth Maul Tarantula
Southern Colorado, we are thrilled to spotlight one of the most breathtaking arachnids in the hobby! Discovered relatively recently in 2014, the Darth Maul Tarantula (Psalmopoeus victori) is actually the very first arboreal tarantula species ever discovered in Mexico.

Also known as the Mexican Half and Half, the females boast a stunning, two-toned coloration: a velvety, jet-black front half that abruptly transitions to a fiery, vibrant red on their abdomen and back legs! (Males are just as fascinating, though they mature into a fuzzy, olive-green or grayish-brown color and have a shorter lifespan of 3 to 4 years, compared to the female's impressive 10 to 12 years).

Education Over Intimidation
You will often read that this is strictly an "advanced" species because they lack the itchy urticating hairs of more docile tarantulas. Instead, they rely on blinding speed, impressive jumping abilities, and a highly defensive threat posture. However, at Beasties, we firmly believe that keepers of all experience levels can successfully care for any animal they are passionate about! As long as you are armed with proper education and a deep respect for the spider's boundaries as a hands-off display pet, you can absolutely thrive with this species.

The Arboreal "Dirt Curtain" Setup
Native to the humid rainforests of Veracruz, Mexico, they live high in the trees and have a highly unique building behavior.

- Vertical Space: They require a tall, vertically oriented terrarium.

- The Cork Bark Home: You should provide a tall, vertical piece of cork bark tube or a curved piece leaning securely against the back glass for them to hide behind.

- Dirt Curtains: Even though they live up high, they need 2 to 4 inches of lightly moistened Reptisoil or equivalent on the floor. They are famous for carrying this dirt up the glass and weaving it into their webs to create camouflaged "dirt curtains"!

The High-Prairie Airflow Balance
Keeping them hydrated in Colorado requires a careful balancing act.

- Cross-Ventilation is Key: They require high humidity. However, completely sealing a humid tank creates stagnant, swampy air, which quickly leads to fatal fungal and bacterial issues.

- The Moisture Battery: A tall terrarium with side vents (cross-ventilation) is recommended. Keeping their shallow water dish full and overflowing it slightly once a week dampens the bottom layers of the soil, acting as a natural moisture battery without making the enclosure stuffy.

Stop by Beasties, a Pet Store and More!! this week to see this incredible tarantula in person! Our invertebrate team is ready to walk you through designing the perfect towering, cross-ventilated arboreal habitat for your next spider.

08/25/2026

Bold, Bright, and Beautiful: The Giant Orange Dart Frog
Southern Colorado, if you are looking for one of the largest and most iconic species in the amphibian hobby, we have exactly what you need! Check out the gorgeous Poison Dart Frog (Dendrobates tinctorius) we currently have available at the shop.

Specifically, we are featuring the massive, robust Giant Orange morph (or locale) from Northeastern South America, famous for its bright orange and yellow crown and back patterns over a black and blue body.

The Terrestrial "Tink"
Unlike tiny, arboreal frogs, Dendrobates tinctorius (often called "Tinks") are heavy-bodied and strictly terrestrial.

- Zero Poison: While they are poisonous in the wild, they sequester those chemicals from specific rainforest ants and mites. Fed on our captive diet of fruit flies, they are completely harmless!

- The Micro-Predator Diet: Because of their larger size, adult Tinks easily hunt the larger Drosophila hydei fruit flies. Every feeding must be dusted with an all-in-one calcium and vitamin supplement, and supplemented with a dedicated Retinol (Vitamin A) powder once a month to prevent Short Tongue Syndrome.

- Mixing Morphs: We don't recommend mixing different morphs (like keeping a Giant Orange with a Citronella or Patricia). Mixing locales causes cross-breeding (creating "mutts") and can lead to severe territorial aggression.

The Colorado Home Setup
Because they are heavily adapted to the stable, warm forest floors of the Guiana Shield, they make absolutely fantastic pets for the home.

- Room Temperature Ready: They thrive at a standard ambient daytime temperature of 70°F - 75°F, with a natural nighttime drop.

- No Heat Lamps: Supplemental heating is rarely required and is often dangerous! Never use heat lamps or under-tank heaters, as they will rapidly desiccate (dry out) the frogs.

- Simulating the Rain: To keep them hydrated at home, we highly recommend using a misting system for 30 to 60 seconds in the morning and evening to simulate tropical rainfall! This system can be anything from an automated system to a handheld spray bottle. Just make sure to use water that has been treated to be safe for fish and amphibians; we like SeaChem's Prime!

The High-Desert Bioactive Vivarium
Managing their high humidity needs in Pueblo's dry climate requires a carefully constructed bioactive enclosure:

- The Moisture Battery: We use a deep drainage layer of Substratum, a mesh barrier, moistened sphagnum moss, and ReptiSoil to prevent that heavy daily misting from turning the soil into a swamp.

- The Leaf Litter Mandate: The floor must be completely covered in leaf litter (like Magnolia or Live Oak) or moss. Dart frogs live on the leaves, not the dirt; without them, their feet will rot and they will become highly stressed.

Stop by Beasties, a Pet Store and More!! this week to see these vibrant Giant Oranges in person! Our amphibian team is ready to walk you through designing the perfect, heavily planted terrestrial vivarium for your home.

08/22/2026

Defying the Stereotype: The Amazon Tree Boa
Southern Colorado, we have a truly special snake to introduce you to! Take a look at this stunning Yellow Phase Amazon Tree Boa (Corallus hortulana) we currently have at the shop.

Typically, this species is famous for having a notoriously defensive temperament; they are usually display animals that are easily startled and possess exceptionally long teeth specifically adapted for penetrating the feathers of birds in mid-air. However, this beautiful yellow female we have in store completely defies that stereotype! She is incredibly friendly, endlessly curious, and rarely strikes unless heavily startled.

Origins: The Rainforest Canopy
To understand how to keep these slender, lightweight boas thriving, we look to their native microclimate.

- Native Range: They are vastly distributed across the Amazon River Basin and surrounding tropical regions of South America (including Brazil, Colombia, Peru, and the Guianas).

- The Canopy Life: They primarily inhabit lowland rainforests and gallery forests along rivers. As highly arboreal snakes, they spend their days tightly coiled on horizontal branches or hidden in tree hollows, waiting for nightfall to hunt using their highly sensitive heat pits.

A Rainbow of Boas
Amazon Tree Boas are famous in the reptile hobby for their incredible "polymorphism," meaning they come in a virtually endless array of naturally occurring colors and patterns. No two snakes look exactly alike!

- Garden Phase: The most common wild type, featuring incredibly intricate patterns of olive, green, brown, gray, and black for unparalleled canopy camouflage.

- Colored Phase: Highly sought after (just like this yellow female!), these individuals display vibrant base colors of bright yellow, neon orange, or deep blood-red.

The Vertical Life: Perching & Ambushing
Because they live their lives entirely off the ground, their enclosure design and hunting strategies are completely unique compared to terrestrial snakes!

- The Perching Mandate: Amazon Tree Boas do not climb straight up glass or smooth vertical poles; they drape themselves over horizontal branches. Providing multiple sturdy, horizontal perches (like PVC pipes, bamboo, etc) at varying heights is absolutely critical to making them feel secure.

- The Downward Strike: These snakes have incredible feeding responses and strike with lightning speed from their perches. When offering them a meal it is best to use long feeding tongs to hold the prey slightly below them. This allows them to strike downward and tightly wrap their meal while hanging in mid-air!

Stop by Beasties, a Pet Store and More!! this week to meet this curious, yellow canopy-dweller in person! Our reptile team is ready to walk you through designing the perfect vertical habitat from top to bottom.

08/18/2026

Welcome the Ultimate Pet Reptile: Baby Bearded Dragons!
Southern Colorado, get ready for a massive overload of cuteness! We just received an adorable new group of baby Inland Bearded Dragons (Pogona vitticeps) from one of our premium breeders, and they are ready to steal your heart!

Widely considered the quintessential pet reptile, these highly intelligent and visually oriented lizards are famous for their engaging personalities and relatively docile temperaments. (Fun fact: They get their name from their ability to puff out their spiky throat pouch, which often turns jet black, when they display dominance or feel threatened!)

Origins: The Australian Outback
To understand how to care for them, we have to look to their native range in the arid and semi-arid regions of central and eastern Australia.

- The Microclimate: They naturally inhabit dry, sun-baked woodlands, scrublands, and deserts.

- Semi-Arboreal Baskers: They spend significant time basking on fence posts, fallen logs, and low branches, while also utilizing burrows to escape extreme heat or cold.

The Southern Colorado Advantage
Because they require a dry, arid environment with low humidity, Bearded Dragons adapt wonderfully to the naturally dry air of our high-desert climate here in Pueblo! Standard screen-topped enclosures work flawlessly here, keeping them safe from severe respiratory infections and scale rot that can be caused by high humidity.

Raising a Happy, Healthy Baby
While they make phenomenal pets, their intense lighting and heat requirements must be strictly met. Here is what you need to know about raising a baby "Beardie":

- The Extreme Basker: They are extreme heliotherms (sun-baskers) that need a scorching localized hot spot to digest their food and metabolize nutrients. They require a basking surface paired with a mandatory, high-output T5 linear UVB tube to prevent Metabolic Bone Disease.

- The Baby Diet: While adults shift to eating mostly salads, babies are growing rapidly and require a diet of 75% insects (like crickets and Dubia roaches) and 25% veggies!

Stop by Beasties, a Pet Store and More!! this week to see these adorable new babies in person! Our reptile team is ready to help you dial in those critical temperatures and set up the perfect arid habitat.

08/15/2026

The Ultimate Desert Beginner: The Arizona Blonde Tarantula
Southern Colorado, if you are looking for the ultimate beginner invertebrate, look no further than the Arizona Blonde Tarantula (Aphonopelma chalcodes)! Sporting a beautiful, sandy-blonde carapace that contrasts heavily with dark brown or black legs, they truly look like a piece of the desert come to life. They are incredibly hardy, forgiving, and famously docile.

Origins: The Sonoran Desert
Native to the harsh, arid environments of the Sonoran Desert region, their native range spans across Arizona, New Mexico, Southern California, and northern Mexico.

- The Microclimate: In the wild, they live in dry, sandy deserts and arid scrublands.

- The Burrowers: They are obligate terrestrial burrowers. To escape the extreme daytime heat of the desert sun, they construct deep burrows under rocks or utilize abandoned rodent holes. They emerge only at dusk to ambush passing prey.

The Pueblo Advantage
Because they are desert dwellers, they are one of the few exotic pets that naturally thrive in the dry, high-desert climate of Pueblo, Colorado!

- Low Humidity: They require a low to arid humidity of 30% - 50%.

- Easy Maintenance: Unlike high-humidity tropical species that require sealed glass tanks, standard open-screen tops work flawlessly for them in Pueblo's naturally dry air. You do not need to mist the enclosure; simply providing a small water dish is all they require.

Crucial Care Tips for Beginners
While they are celebrated for their incredibly calm, slow-moving demeanor, keeping them safe requires a few specific setup rules:

- The Fall-Proof Setup: Because this is a heavy, terrestrial tarantula, a fall from even a few inches can rupture their heavy abdomens, which is almost always fatal. To prevent this, the distance from the top of the substrate to the lid of the enclosure should never be more than 1.5 times the spider's leg span.

- Heating Dangers: NEVER put a heat mat under a tarantula enclosure. In the wild, tarantulas dig down into the earth to escape the sun. If you heat the bottom of the tank, they will burrow down to cool off, effectively cooking themselves to death. If your home is comfortable for you in a t-shirt, it is perfect for the tarantula!

- The Desert Fast: Arizona Blondes have incredibly slow metabolisms and are notorious in the hobby for going on massive, self-imposed fasting strikes. They can sometimes refuse food for six months or more with absolutely no ill effects.

- Molting Protocol: When it is time to shed their exoskeleton, the tarantula will flip onto its back to molt. DO NOT TOUCH OR MOVE THEM! Disturbing a molting tarantula is almost always fatal.

Stop by Beasties, a Pet Store and More!! this week to see these beautiful arachnids in person. It is a long-term commitment, as the females are incredibly long-lived and can easily reach 20 to 30+ years of age! Our invertebrate team is ready to walk you through designing the perfect, fall-proof desert habitat for your new spider.

08/11/2026

Spotlighting the Riparian Acrobat: The Australian Water Dragon
Southern Colorado, our amazing trio of Australian Water Dragons is still hanging out with us at the shop, and we just had to put them back in the spotlight!

While we've previously talked about their prehistoric crests and the beautiful "brick red" chests our males are developing, there is so much more to learn about these highly intelligent agamid lizards.

The 90-Minute Submarine
We know they love a daily dip in the water, but their aquatic skills are actually on a whole different level!

- Because they live strictly along the banks of rivers and lakes, they use water as their ultimate defense mechanism.

- When startled, they will immediately drop into the water to evade predators and are capable of remaining completely submerged for up to 90 minutes!

- They will even sleep entirely submerged in the water to regulate their body temperature and hide from nocturnal predators.

The Name Game
For decades, these dragons were grouped together with the Chinese Water Dragon under the same scientific genus (Physignathus).

- In 2012, genetic and morphological studies revealed just how unique they are.

- They were officially reclassified into their own distinct genus, Intellagama.

The Salad Shift
Feeding an Australian Water Dragon changes dramatically as they grow up!

- They are opportunistic omnivores.

- Juveniles (up to 1 year old) need a diet of 70% protein and 30% vegetation, eagerly hunting insects like Dubia roaches and crickets to fuel their rapid growth.

- As adults, they shift to a 50/50 balance. To avoid high-oxalate greens like spinach that bind calcium, we love offering a convenient Fresh Herb Salad topped with Baby Arugula right from the local grocery store! (You can also safely mix in low-oxalate staples like collard, mustard, or dandelion greens).

Building Trust
As babies, these lizards are naturally flighty and skittish.

- Unlike many other large lizards, they are highly intelligent and visually oriented.

- With patient, consistent, trust-based handling, they adapt exceptionally well to captivity.

- Adult Water Dragons transform into incredibly tame, bold, and interactive display animals.

Stop by Beasties, a Pet Store and More!! this week to visit our trio! Our reptile team is ready to walk you through exactly how to design the perfect, room-sized custom enclosure with the mandatory commercial-grade water feature these incredible acrobats require!

08/08/2026

The Royal Canvas: Ball Python Genetics & Genome Breakthroughs!
Southern Colorado, prepare to have your minds blown by some incredible reptile science!

First, take a look at this gorgeous adult male Ball Python (Python regius) we just snapped a photo of. He is an Enchi pos Mandarin morph, and as a former breeder who no longer fits into our projects, he is officially available for sale as a spectacular pet or an asset for another breeder's project!

Ball Pythons, also known as Royal Pythons, are heavy-bodied snakes and are undeniably one of the most popular pet snakes in the world due to their incredibly docile nature and manageable size.

Origins: The African Savanna
To understand their care, we first have to look at where they come from.

- Native Range: They are native to West and Central Sub-Saharan Africa, including countries like Ghana, Togo, and Benin.

- The Microclimate: Their natural habitat consists of grasslands, savannas, and sparsely wooded areas.

- The Burrowers: They are primarily terrestrial and highly fossorial (burrowing) animals. They spend the vast majority of their time hiding in abandoned rodent burrows or termite mounds, coming out at night to ambush prey.

The "Co-Dom" Misconception
Ball Pythons have become the ultimate canvas of the reptile world, boasting thousands of stunning genetic color and pattern mutations. However, as the breeder community advances, scientists are helping us correct a widespread misunderstanding: many traits the reptile hobby incorrectly calls "co-dom" (co-dominant) are actually incomplete dominant!

Here is how the "Inheritance Rules" actually work:

- Co-Dominant (The "Shared Spotlight" Rule): Both alleles are fully dominant, and both are fully expressed at the exact same time side-by-side. There is absolutely no blending! Think of human AB blood types: to put it simply, if you get A from Dad and B from Mom, both are equally expressed as type AB in you.

- Incomplete Dominant (The "Blended" Rule): This is where one allele isn't strong enough to completely hide the other. Instead, they mix together like paint to create a brand new, middle-ground appearance. A mismatched pair of alleles creates an intermediate pattern sitting halfway between a normal and a "Super" form. Morphs like Pastel, Mojave, and the Enchi morph pictured here are actually perfect examples of incomplete dominance!

The 2025 UC Boulder Genome Breakthrough!
For decades, breeders have been mixing these mutations by trial and error. But in early 2025, science took a massive leap forward when scientists at the University of Colorado Boulder (the Leinwand Lab) officially published the first complete, high-quality genome assembly of the Ball Python!

- What this means for Science: Pythons have the incredible ability to rapidly grow and shrink their organs (like their hearts and intestines) when digesting large meals, completely without suffering tissue damage or muscular atrophy. By mapping this genome, UC Boulder hopes to study this extreme physiological plasticity to find insights that could lead to treatments for human heart disease and muscular dystrophy!

- What this means for Breeders: Having the entire genome mapped is an absolute game-changer. It will eventually allow scientists and breeders to pinpoint the exact molecular mutations responsible for every single color and pattern morph. This will take the guesswork out of complex breeding projects and could potentially help to eliminate genes associated with neurological or physical defects!

Stop by Beasties, a Pet Store and More!! this week to see this incredible Enchi pos Mandarin male for yourself! Whether you are looking for a fantastic pet or looking to expand your own genetic projects, our team is ready to talk husbandry and science with you!

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