Bloues and Stompie

Chris and Anne Sadler live in Unit 38.

Chris and Anne Sadler

Chris, a retired electrician, and Anne, a retired nursing sister, met while working in Zambia (formerly Northern Rhodesia), married, and had three children. 

From Zambia they moved to Zimbabwe (formerly Southern Rhodesia). Subsequent to the Internal Settlement, i.e. the agreement between Prime Minister Ian Smith and Bishop Abel Muzorewa in 1978, the Sadler family moved "down south" to settle in Kempton Park. Due to work commitments they then moved to Witbank where they lived for 8 years before returning to Kempton Park. In 1998 the couple moved to Polokwane where they retired in 2006. In order to move closer to their children in Benoni, Chris and Anne moved to Warmbad Renaissance in 2013.

However, this story is actually about the Sadlers's charming relationship with two blue-headed tree agama (Acanthocerus atricollis) or, as they are more commonly known, bloukopkoggelmanders.

They have named one of them Bloues and the other, Stompie. Bloues's name is derived from the very distinctive and highly visible ultramarine colour of his head during breeding.

The head of a bloukopkoggelmander is a distinctive colour during breeding

According to Chris, Stompie is probably one of Bloues's offspring. However, being intensely territorial, they are constantly at loggerheads with each other. In fact Stompie's tail was bitten off in a recent territoral dispute - probably with Bloues.

These little animals are so tame that Chris feeds them meal-worms by hand, though not at the same time - for obvious reasons. Chris says that Bloues is also fond of the filling of Lemon Cream biscuits!



Bloues receiving a tidbit from Chris

Apparently Stompie is a quite a grumpy little fellow. Once, when Chris was a little slow in feeding him a worm, he promptly bit his (Chris's) toe.