The cycle of life

Despite the fact Hubby and I have put a moratorium on acquiring any more frogs, we adopted a new little guy last weekend.  I occasionally check a reptile rescue website, and have never seen any frogs on there, but there just happened to be one last time.  The woman we adopted him from had purchased a head of lettuce at a organic market, had it in the fridge for three days, and then her daughter went to wash it in the sink, and a frog jumped out!  She did an impressive amount of research, but it was getting hard to take care of him, so she wanted him to go to a good home, and now he has lots of froggy friends.  She named him Gilbert, and he is an American green tree frog.

Unfortunately, two days later my grey tree frog, Bo, passed away, so it was a sad day.

Decorating with Frogs

So frogs aren't typically the topic of most interior design blog posts, but I'm not typical. I currently have two toads, three grey tree frogs, and 2 amazon milk frogs, and they are all in some stage of adolescence. I just finished a beautiful new terrarium for the grey tree frogs, as they are almost grown up, and will be making a new big one for the amazon milk frogs next. Both of these are about 12" deep by 16" wide by 24" tall, so finding a place to put them is a little difficult. I've been playing with designs for a custom shelving unit, but I've always loved the look of metal etageres, and think they would be perfect for terrarium displays. Now I just have to find one that is the correct size and sturdy enough, which is unfortunately almost impossible.

A few inspiration photos from the archives:

Unfortunately, I saved these photos quite a while ago, and I have no idea where I got them, so if you know, let me know so I can credit them!

Sad Day

Very sad news. Friday night I came home and discovered that Lewis had died. He had been really dark colored and lethargic for a few days, but I'm not sure what it was that he died from. He had a rough froglethood, as we had no idea what we were doing when we got the tadpoles, but he was a trooper.

R.I.P my beloved baby frog.

Babies Just in Time for Mother's Day!

Boyfriend went up to the cabin last weekend and had a special delivery for me when he came back - 3 tadpoles! They came from the same tire rut that Lewis and Clark came from, so my hope is that they are gray tree frogs, but we'll find out in a couple of months. The frog guru (actual title) on the frog forum I frequent thinks they may be toad tadpoles, so that made me a little nervous. They are really small, so I'm thinking they just hatched from eggs, but they are quite active and fun to watch. I can't wait for little baby froglets - they are so adorable. :)

Lewis' New Home

So I realized that I had forgotten to post a very momentous occasion that occurred a week ago - Lewis moved into his completed terrarium! He's very happy having extra room to leap around in and explore. He was a little confused by the waterfall at first though, as he had never seen running water before. He stared intently at it for several minutes and then tried to eat it - apparently everything that moves is food, in his head.

Now that this is done, boyfriend has massive plans to make a Cambodian temple terrarium for Troy and Hines, his two original dart frogs.

New Additions to the Family

So I'm sure you are all wondering how my Saturday spent with frogs was, and as you've probably guessed, we came home with a few new additions. We now have four Allobates femoralis froglets, which are a kind of dart frogs from Peru. I've learned the difference between people who keep dart frogs and people who keep tree frogs this weekend, which was interesting. Dart froggers (that's the actual term, interestingly enough), keep frogs as a hobby, and so they don't usually get common names, only scientific names, let alone actually have the owner give them an individual name. I guess when you keep 450 frogs, it's difficult to come up with enough names. But tree froggers tend to keep frogs more as pets and give them names, which is why I like them better. But without further ado, I introduce you to one of the new babies (we're not naming them until we see how their characters are).

Frogtime!

So I haven't done a post on my frog baby in a while, and seeing as how boyfriend has talked me into going to a meeting of the mid-Atlantic dendrobate society tomorrow, I figured it was applicable. I'm totally making fun of it now - it's being held in someone's basement, who has 81 terrariums down there - but I know as soon as I get there I will immediately get really excited. Dendrobates are dart frogs, which I'm not as fond of, but boyfriend loves them, so hopefully I won't be too tempted to come home with some new friends, but we'll see. Anyways, here are some pictures of Lewis, chilling on his rock.

Update on Clark

It's funny how I've been finding out how people are getting attached to my frogs almost as much as me, even though they've never met them. Well, I have some more news about Clark, who went missing when I first moved in. We had to move pretty much everything in the bedroom to make room for the loft assembly, and after moving the bed, I found that Clark had decided to hide in the one place that I would be guaranteed not to find him - deep under the bed, and I am sad to say that he didn't make it. I guess it's better to know what happened to him then to always wonder, but it was a very sad moment. Plans are being made for a memorial service where we will bury him next to the puddle at the cabin where he came from this spring.

Lewis has fattened up considerably since Clark has been gone, as Lewis was always a little bit stupider than Clark. Clark would immediately swoop down and start gobbling up the flies when feeding time came, but Lewis tends to dink around, and eventually come down and look at the flies for about 10 minutes, and then decide they might be tasty. Needless to say, not having competition has been good for him. His terrarium is coming along, so I will post pictures once Lewis is all moved in.

Maybe Cute, Maybe Odd Frog Behaviour

So I'm totally a frog momma, as I have to tell everyone what my frogs have done lately. I got home last night and could only see Clark in their tank, so I took off the top to look around. Lo and behold, Clark was sitting on top of Lewis, completely covering him. They are way too young for there to be any freaky behavior going on, so I'm not really sure why Clark decided to smother Lewis. I was a little worried for Lewis, as he looked somewhat blob-like and unnatural looking after Clark finally got off of him, but he perked right up. Maybe Clark thought Lewis looked cold or something.

In other frog news, Leo is starting to grow up! He is changing from his juvenile coloring of green with yellow spots to various shades of brown. Awww...they grow up so quickly.

Out and About in Nature

So yesterday I just happened to look at one of my memory cards and found some pictures from our trek out to boyfriend's cabin in the middle of nowhere, Pennsylvania that we took in July. This trip was the start of my love affair with frogs, as it's where Lewis and Clark came home with me in the form of tadpoles. So it's fitting that I happened to take a shot of a beautiful frog, that I have since found out is a pickerel frog.

And our animal sightings didn't end there, we also spent a good hour or so crayfish hunting in the river and managed to catch two. Let it be known that boyfriend and his sister tried unsuccessfully for 20 minutes or so, until I stepped in and caught one in five minutes. :)

In other news, I've actually had a few evenings to myself the past couple of days, rather than spending them working, so I was able to finish up and take photos of nine more items for my Totables shop - stay tuned for the additions!

More Baby Pictures

So my life lately revolves around work and frogs...that's all I do anymore. So without further ado, more baby pictures!

Clark is the larger of my two grey tree frogs. He's about 3/4" long now and is almost completely changed into his adult coloring. He can still change from light green to grey to brown to dark green.



Another picture of Clark


Lewis is about 1/2" and doesn't have all the variegation in his color yet that makes him blend in better.


Boyfriend brought home two poison dart frogs from the show last weekend, who are now living with me because I have all the food at my house. They are about 3/4" long and will probably almost double in size when they get full grown. As they are the same colors as the Steelers, and boyfriend is a diehard Steelers fan, they are named after football players. One is Troy, and the other one is Hines, but I'm not sure which is which.


The other dart frog. These guys are very acrobatic and like to hop around a lot. They are hilarious to watch hunt fruit flies.


The temporary homes of Lewis, Clark, and Leo. Lewis and Clark live in the fishbowl on the left and Leo lives in the pitcher on the right. Currently there are three vivariums (a terrarium with living things in it) in the works at boyfriend's house. They will be done in a month or so.


The whole set-up. On the bottom shelf are fruit fly cultures on the left along with feeding utensils, and on the right is the night-time home of boyfriend's frogs. They come out during the daytime. On the floor are the vitamins to dust the fruit flies with. Up top is a light for the daytime.

Leo the Mystery Frog

I forgot to add this picture, which is a little better as to what Leo actually looks like. According to this he is a leptopelis uluguruensis and comes from Tanzania. The issue with actually identifying him as this is that their common name is the Ruby-eyed Tree Frog, and as you can see, his eyes are greenish-brown, not red. This is the only picture of one that I could find without red eyes, so we'll see.

(photo courtesy of www.szrek.pl)

I'm officially a nerd

So, I've been blaming frog mania on boyfriend for a while now, but it turns out I have to admit that I'm a little nerdy myself. We went to the Mid-Atlantic Reptile and Amphibian show in Baltimore on Saturday and spent 5 hours looking at various plants and sticks and stuff for the terrarium, and then finally broke down at the end and boyfriend bought two frogs and I bought one. He's been wanting to get poison dart frogs, so he got two yellow and black ones, who are currently living at my house until their terrarium is set up. I got what I was told was a peacock tree frog, but we don't think that is what he actually is. After a bunch of research, we think he's related to the peacock, but is most likely something else. We found one picture that matches him perfectly on the internet, but unfortunately the website was entirely in polish. The important thing though, was that he will only get to be 3-4 cm, or about 1.5". At one point, I was convinced he was a giant white-lipped tree frog, who grow to be 5" long, and that worried me a bit. But anyways, here are a few pictures of my babies.

My mystery frog - Leo

One of my original Grey tree frogs - Clark. They are chameleon-like and this is his "rock covered in lichens" look. The other one, Lewis, is a little bit younger and doesn't have the full markings on his back yet.