The four-year-old apex predator reportedly stared past the heavily supplemented insect for a full 20 minutes before slowly closing his left eye.
TEMPE, Ariz. — Area reptile El Asesino, a four-year-old inland bearded dragon, reportedly declined to consume a live cricket coated in Repashy Calcium Plus on Tuesday morning, ending his breakfast session without a single strike. According to household sources, the lizard completely ignored the heavily powdered insect even as it crawled unimpeded over his front right claw.
The incident began at approximately 8:15 a.m. when owner Kevin Scholes lowered the dusted insect into the 40-gallon terrarium using 12-inch stainless steel feeding tongs. Anticipating a swift display of the primal hunting instincts that originally earned the lizard his Spanish moniker, Scholes dropped the cricket squarely onto a slate basking rock. Instead of pouncing, the reptile maintained a motionless, wide-stanced posture under his 100-watt ceramic heat emitter. Witnesses confirmed El Asesino spent the next seven minutes breathing shallowly and gazing blankly at the thermostat wire suctioned to the back wall.
When the cricket began to clean its antennae while sitting directly in the middle of the ceramic food dish, Scholes reportedly intervened to re-stimulate the dragon's predatory drive. Employing the tongs, Scholes picked the insect back up and gently tapped it repeatedly against El Asesino's snout. The lizard absorbed four consecutive taps before slowly puffing out his spiked throat and pivoting his head two inches to the left, signaling a total withdrawal from the morning feeding schedule.
When a feeder insect is entirely caked in an opaque white dietary supplement, it ceases to register as organic prey and is instead categorized by the dragon as a mildly annoying piece of mobile gravel.
At press time, the chalky cricket had reportedly wedged itself safely beneath a plastic desert succulent, while El Asesino had extended his tongue to lick a completely bare patch of the green reptile carpet.