#All our classes are shortened minus 5th which is like 2 hours

[crazyman185]

So I have four pets (soon to be five in August): a Crested Gecko, two Australian Green Tree Frogs, and a Western Hognose Snake. Later this year I plan to get a Columbian Red Tailed Boa, cause I want a big snake.

- Gary (or Garrosh Hellscream)

Gary is male Crested Gecko that is four/five years old. His actual name is Garrosh Hellscream, cause I let my guild from World of Warcraft name him, odd I know, but I just shortened it to Gary for everyone else. He is a very specialized morph which would take me forever to explain so I’ll just say he is a Blonde Harlequin /w 100% Pinstripe & Speckled Dalmatian traits. Unfortunately, he lost his tail the first day I got him in early January 2017. I was lied to that Gary used to people and he got spooked within an hour of getting him and jumped out of my coworker’s hand on to another’s butt. Then he couldn’t grasp his jeans well and fell to the ground where he shed his tail. This species never regrow their tail again but about 90% of all Crested Geckos in the wild lack tails anyhow. It’s purely cosmetic for them to keep it and nothing changes if they lose it. They are called frogbutts in the pet trade if they lack a tail. Anywho Gary escaped his cage a few weeks later (no idea how) and went missing for seventeen days. I thought he was dead for sure but one day when I was teaching Herpetology class to some 5th graders I went into our reptile house and there he was in our Red-eared slider aquarium on a floaty getting a drink. I was ecstatic and Gary’s behavior almost immediately changed to being very friendly being held and now he is a great tool in my teaching. Normally in the wild, they eat insects (when young), nectar, and rotten fruit. I feed Gary every 4 days, a fruit powder mix (his favorite is watermelon mango). If I treat him right he’ll live to be over twenty years old (they actually don’t their maximum age)!

-Judy Hopps and Kif

I got both Australian Green Tree Frogs in October of 2016. Judy Hopps is a female that turned 2 years old last month, and Kif is a male that turns 2 years old in June. One of my co-workers came up with the name Judy Hopps and I went with Kif as a reference to Futurama. Both are in their default colors in these pics, olive green for the female, and light green for the male. Though their colors change based off of their mood and temperature. I’ve seen them change to brown, white green, dark green, and even bluish green. Judy Hopps is a blue-eyed morph, Kif is a wild-type (or normal). At first, I didn’t know if there would be any differences in their gender so I got the female as a morph so I could tell them apart. Later I learned females are usually larger than males and that males have a grey throat & females a white throat. I use both in the herpetology class but they are the only animal I don’t let kids touch/hold cause they get antsy when they start to get pet/passed around. I feed them every 4 days, alternating between superworms and Dubai roaches. The superworms I dust with a multivitamin and calcium /w vitamin D3 powder. These are long living frogs that average 15-20 years of age but the longest living ever was 29!

-Piglet

My baby! I got Piglet the same day I wrote Cubicity’s first chapter, on July 23rd! She’s a Western Hognose snake. Her morph makes her pattern similar to the green anaconda, hence why it’s called an anaconda morph. A normal morph would have smaller and more numerous blotches in its pattern. I went with Piglet cause it’s cute and if she ended up being a boy it was going to be Porkchop. Technically she’s venomous but she’s a rear-fanged snake. Not only do rear-fanged snakes have to chew on you to release venom (versus just a quick bite like front-fanged venomous snakes) it’s also very mild (minus the African Boomslang) and is species specific (frogs and toads in this instance). She’s never bit me or kids and has been a great animal to ease kids into being comfortable with snakes until you bring out the bigger ones my work has. When I first got Piglet, she ate one pinkie (newborn mouse with no fur) every three days. At eight months old she now, she eats two pinkies weekly and will upgrade to fuzzies (young mice with their first coat of fur) when she’s older. Unlike my other pets (who like room temperature, 75F or 23/24C) Piglet requires a heating pad. I got an expensive device that regulates the voltage of my heating pad so you can control the temperature precisely and prevent overheating that can easily lead to death. They average at about 10-15 years of age but sometimes get over 20. 

#reptiles #amphibians #crested gecko #Australian green tree frogs #western hognose snake