Posted by Sarah on June 27, 2009
Legless Frog Mystery Solved
It turns out that the deformed frogs and toads aren’t caused by chemical contaminants after all, or at least they aren’t all caused by them.
Scientists have discovered that some species of dragonfly nymphs eat the limb buds off of tadpoles, which results in frogs with missing or deformed legs, if the tadpoles survive to adulthood.
A parasitic flatworm, Riberoria trematode, which burrows into tadpole’s hindquarters, rearranges the limb bud cells while it’s in there, and that can result in extra limbs.
Although this has been going on for years, I don’t remember reading anything saying that natural predators might be responsible for the deformities, all I’ve heard is that it was due to chemicals, so I think it’s really interesting that it is something natural that’s causing the problems.
What do you think about this?
Posted by Sarah on June 16, 2009
The chameleon eggs still haven’t hatched.
Since they were laid on July 1, 2008, and they normally take 6-13 months to hatch we still have about another month and a half before things start to look abnormal.
Unfortunately some of the eggs have died, so it looks like we have about 7 of the original 13 left that are still viable.
You can read more about the eggs at 13 Nosy Be Panther Chameleon Eggs.
Posted by Sarah on May 19, 2009
David just left a comment with a very good question, which I edited a bit for clarity.
“My chameleon is a youngster and eats medium crickets.
Now I looked at him just a moment ago and the crickets have been eating just belowe the spikes on his spine.
Can someone help me please as i cannot figure out what to do.
My e-mail is ***deleted to prevent spam*** thanks and help is needed urgently.”
David, the easy answer is don’t leave crickets in the cage with your chameleon if he isn’t going to eat them very soon.
If there are extra crickets running around, there is always the chance that they will get bored and start crawling on or biting your chameleon.
We keep our crickets and other chameleon foods in separate tupperware containters.
Instead of gutloading the batch we are going to feed the next day, we gutload the entire container, and then we can just grab a few when we are ready to feed the chameleons.
Jeff feeds crickets and mealworms from a cricket feeder cup, and he justs dusts them before he feeds them.
He uses tongs to feed Sully roaches one by one (we really don’t want roaches loose in the house), and he takes a sprinkle of whichever mineral powder he is using that day, and dusts it over each roach before he feeds it.
This way we can see exactly how much each reptile eats, we can make sure they eat the supplements before they come off of the food items, and we can make sure that none of the food escapes from the reptile cages, or stays in the cage long enough to harass the reptiles.
When we do use crickets we will occasionally let one loose in Sully (the panther chameleon) or Tiger’s (the leopard gecko) cages so that they can hunt and get a little bit of exercise, but only when we can tell that they are still hungry, and will be pretty likely to hunt the cricket down before the reptiles go to sleep.
I have heard of people who use a bowl full of crickets wrapped in wire so the crickets can’t climb out of the bowl and eat the reptiles, but with that method you still can’t be sure that your pets are getting proper supplementation.
Your chameleon should also be seen by a vet to make sure the bite wounds below his spikes aren’t infected, and to see if he needs any medications to prevent are treat infections.
Good luck, and let me know how your chameleon is doing.
Thank you.
If you have a reptile question let me know about it! If I don’t know the answer I’ll do my best to find it.
You can see David’s original comment at What do you feed your crickets?
Posted by Sarah on May 5, 2009
Here's Sully in his unlazy days.
Have you noticed your lizards are getting lazy?
Tiger, the leopard gecko, is doing ok, but Sully is getting lazier in his old age.
Since we started feeding him roaches, Jeff makes sure that the roaches don’t escape from Sully’s cage.
That means Jeff feeds Sully each roach with some wooden tongs, to make sure he eats each roach.
Now that Sully is more used to Jeff, he’ll wait for Jeff to get the roaches, and if he drops a roach, he’ll wait for Jeff to pick it back up with the tongs before he tries to eat it again.
Sully is so spoiled.
We’re planning on getting a shipment of crickets soon, so that Sully and Tiger can hunt for their food a little bit more, and so it will give them a little variety.
Posted by Sarah on April 30, 2009
Sully the Nosy Be Panther Chameleon's Eye
Those are definitely not words that I want to hear in public, especially when they’re coming from my husband.
My three year old niece loves looking at the roaches when she comes over.
The last time she visited she even asked to look at the “aliens” or “ants” twice.
I went and got Jeff and let him do the dirty work, I really don’t play with the roaches that much.
I’ve had enough experience with Palmetto bugs, so I don’t ever want to deal with a roach again.
Anyways, we were at the zoo, and my niece kept calling Jeff to look at the roaches they had there.
Twice I hear Jeff saying “They’ve got roaches, just like us!” from across the room.
I was so embarrassed.
Most people probably aren’t going to think “Wow, I bet they have roaches to feed their reptiles,” they’ll probably thing “Eww, they must be dirty if they have roaches here and it ’s this cold outside.”
Seriously, what would you think?
