My pets

So I got my new digital camera in the mail yesterday. I've already put it to work with these pictures of my babies.

I acquired some tadpoles this summer. It's taking them an amazingly long time to transform into frogs. I can only hazard a guess that spinach is somehow not as nutritious as the pond scum they would normally eat.

So far I have six baby frogs. It was a stressful first couple weeks with the little guys. We'd had a few cold days so I was unable to locate any appropriately sized bugs outside. The crickets at the pet store were far too large. I wasn't even able to attract any fruit flies in my kitchen by leaving food out! They're always around when I don't have frogs to feed... The frogs start out smaller than the nail on my pinky finger. Somehow I was able to keep those froglets alive. I found a small inch worm on one of my houseplants, I pulled the legs off the smallest crickets I could find at Petsmart, I caught two little flies that I found in the office and I brought them home, I did everything I could think of. Then Shannon said, "Why don't you just order some fruit flies? Surely there must be some place you can get them, people are always using them for research and school projects." It's nice having brilliant friends.

I was able to find wingless fruit flies (very handy since the lid on the terrarium is wire mesh). They're very tiny and even the smallest frogs snap them up.

I've had no froglet fatalities, despite their tendency to hop out of the cage when I'm cleaning. Luckily, I've kept a close eye on them. And now that I have the nutritious little flies to feed them, I won't have any die of starvation. My only concern is that the biggest frog will soon be able to swallow the smallest. I must diligently keep him full of crickets or find him another terrarium!