Catching up 2 – frogs

Off I went to a frogger’s get-together – lovely frog room, good pizza, great company.

Epipedobates tricolor Highland

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Allobates femoralis – two of my passions reference LBJs (little brown jobs). I like them in both instances – there’s always something that rewards close inspection. Here, it’s flash marks on the thighs (not seen below, but obvious here).

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Madagascar has Mantellas – small frogs similar in some ways to the neotropical poison dart frogs. I’d like to put together a large Malagasy biotope vivarium – a Mantella species, a few Phelsuma of some type, and maybe a group of Uroplatus. (Also a Platycerium madagascariense + Cymbididiella rhodochila, but they won’t move around much.)

Mantella milotympanum

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One wall of the frog room.

A Day at Black Jungle – Animals

It’s always a gas to check out M and R’s dart frog collection; just as exciting and interesting: they are doing some bird breeding. There are Gouldian finches and an araçari named Lance in the store – other birds, too, but theses two enclosures (Lance especially) captivated me.

Dendrobates leucomelas Guyana Banded. Love these guys. Black Jungle’s banded leucs seem pretty bold – most others I’ve seen have been very shy.

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Dendrobates auratus. When I first got interested in dart frogs I was lukewarm on auratus. No longer.

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The tadpole room.

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M and R had the folks from The Creature Teachers down as well. They had some great critters with them.

Elliot the Umbrella Cockatoo. Elliot has more personality than some people I’ve met. He is an extrovert – within a couple minutes of him stepping onto my hand he and I were talking to each other, bobbing around and having a great time (at least I was – if Elliot wasn’t, he fakes it well).

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He thought that posing for photographs was pretty weak tea after our Soul Train session; the people looking at Sarracenia might want to have some fun, perhaps?

Skoochee the Coati, so named because he puts his front paws out through the door of his crate and Flintstones himself around the room. For folks who are unfamiliar with Coatis – they are cousins of the raccoon from Central and South America. Long canines, amazing double-jointed nose, inquisitive – a favorite creature of mine.