Little Hopper

Little Hopper would probably be my most memorable pet toad from my childhood. Not only because her interesting personality but because of her appearance.

When i was around the age of ten my Uncle Bill, cousin Nora, my dad and I would walk to the nearby train tracks of my lake house. At night we would smash coins on the tracks for when a train went by and Nora and I would bring hand bags to collect train spikes and whatever neat things a kid would find interesting. While we would wait for a train we would be looking along the tracks when suddenly i saw something hop. I chased after it and when i caught it, I couldn't believe what i saw. It was a female American Toad, but it was ALBINO. She had yellow warty skin, pure white belly, and blood red eyes. The most beautiful thing i ever saw. I also noticed she was thin and had a few cuts on her. I had to bring her so i dumped everything i had in my handbag and took her home. Unlike all the new toads i would bring home whom would try to hop away, she didn't, she sat and buried herself in my lap. She wasn't a picky eater either. Whatever Nora caught by motion light outside she would eat. It seemed almost as if she knew i was helping her.


Years went by and of course became a little over weight. Happy with her roommates, Cuddles and Cheetah. Ate anything that crawled, hopped, slithered, walked, anything that could atleast fit in her mouth. She died when i turned 15, had her for 5 years but she had to be 7 -9 years old total. Not very active but did enjoy nights coming out of her cage and i would let her hop around bed and occasionally play a game of cat and mouse with the cursor on my laptop. Later on after it got boring she would climb up my stuffed animals and bury herself down in them. I believe she died of old age but i know she had a long fulfilling life happy. I miss my Little Hopper.

Cucumber

Cucumber is my third ever owned American Green Tree Frog. These frogs are usually a grass-green color with a creamy colored line that runs from their jaw along the flanks. They dont grow to be any bigger than 2-3 inches big and they live most to almost their entire lives up in trees, hences the name Tree Frog. Cucumber came with two other tree frogs i bought (Pickles and Olive) but they died from being in such rough shape from shipping. Cucumber is now three years old and lives in a large tank with two other fire-belly frogs. Rarely would he ever go to the floor of the cage, hes always hiding in the greenery in the corner so he hardly ever made contact with the fire-bellies. Night after night around 3-4am i would start to hear this light croaking that gradually got louder and louder and then too loud that i would find myself on the couch the next morning. It must of been mating season with his attract call to females. Tree frogs live anywhere from 2-7 years, atleast held in captivity.

Recently, I'm not sure what or how it happened, but he somehow managed to break his left arm and its causing him to be in alot pain to the point he cant even climb no longer, which is a huge thing for these frogs. I called a vet and asked him what i can do to help Cucumber. He said that i should probably bring him over to get some X-rays of his arm. I did. What they found was frighting to me. They saw where the bone was dislocated and there was a tiny infection around the opened area. The vet told me that if it didn't heal fast enough, in which it probably wouldn't, then the infection would spread and would most likely kill him. My only option was surgery and that wasn't even promising to save him, the surgery itself could kill him. I was between a rock and a hard place, no matter what decision i made would keep my frogs life at risk.



Few hours of making a pro and con list, my conclusion came down to doing the surgury. As i sat and waited in the waiting room i began to cry. I tried hard not to think about it but the more i did the worse it got. A man and his wife was sitting across from me who apparently had a cat in the surgery room as well getting it stiches removed after getting nutured. The man asked me what was wrong and i told him my tree frog is getting surgery and i was afriad he wouldnt live through it. The women gave me this astounded look and asked me if i was "being for real". She told me thats the strangest thing she heard and left the room. I could hear her ask an employee at the desk about my strange story and i heard something about "pictures". When she came back she sat down and told me that she was an Magazine writter and she wanted to write my story. She had a vet in the surgury room taking pictures of my frogs process.



Cucumber has now had his surgery and is still recovering. I am still waiting to hear back from the woman writting her story.

Romeo and Juliet

About three summers ago in 2007 i walked into an MVP (Most Valuable Pets) store. My main mission was to buy a couple dozen crickets and a jar of crickets calcium for my toads, but something caught my attention. Out on the corner of my eye i noticed a beautiful Lemon yellow frog with blood red eyes and reddish-green squiggles down its back. Sitting next to the yellow frog was a green-green frog with a yellow belly, solid golden eyes and brown squiggles. Both of them looked alike with fat bodies, huge heads but tiny little legs that nearly disappeared under the fat. At first i thought they were fake little rubber toys in an aquarium just for display purposes, until the yellow one blinked. I couldn't believe they were real frogs. I saw a small card tapped onto the aquarium with information about them. It said "Pacman Frogs (Ornate Horned Frogs) , these frogs make great pets despite their large size, are not very active and do not need a large cage. A 10 gallon tank is fine for one of these frogs. The name Pacman comes from their large mouths but small bodies". They didn't seem very big to me, one could easily fit in the palm of my hand. I stood in the store over an hour debating if i should get these frogs. I don't know why i stayed there so long because i knew in the end they would be in my house by the end of the night.

Later that night after they were perfectly setup in my room i decided to do a little online research about them. I finally understood why the card said "despite their large size". They are only babies, at full adult size they grow to be about the size and weight of a football. They aren't very fussy eaters, almost anything on the menu that moves. Albino Pacman frogs are common pets as well as the average green Ornate frog. Life span of 7-10 years, and they are extremely lazy.

Romeo (green, male)and Juliet (albino, female) are now three years old and nearly quadrupled in size. The Internet wasn't lying when they said they are lazy, the only movement i see them do is when they gradually waddle over to the water dish and back into their hole they dug out and when they eat.
Pacman frogs are not terribly difficult to care for, so can make a good pet that is quite attractive and interesting. However, people who like their pets active or interactive may get tired of caring for a pacman frog. Considering a these frogs can live for 7 -10 years, getting one of these frogs amounts to a long term commitment.

PS: to all readers, if you pick up or irriate a Pacman frog don't be alarmed, they do scream!

Lemon

Lemon is going to be a little bit difficult to write about knowing that i had a difficult time to find out about her spices. I got her when my ex-boyfriend worked in a pet store and a man walked in with her and two other fire belly toads saying that he was moving and couldn't take care of them. It was then when my ex knew exactly to call me first and of course i took them in. When i first saw Lemon i had no idea what she was, a toad or a frog. She was a little bit larger then my toads with skin waxy to the touch and this beautiful color design. She was white on her stomach and black with wiggling lemon yellow strips across her back. Golden eyes with strange giant circular pupils that made it difficult to even see the golden ring, almost too creepy to look at.



After a couple a months of having her and having to rearrange many tank setups in which she was not happy with and trying to study about her in every attempt failed, i finally gave up. I decided to then pack my bags and take a trip to the Columbus zoo and meet up with Greg Whitman, the frog specialist of the zoo. I brought Lemon along so he can take a closer look at her. When he saw Lemon he was stunned. This was his first challenge. Flipping through all his books and charts while Lemon just happily walked on his desk eating a appetizer of of crickets and beetles. It started from a few hours to a few days before he finally found a solution. Greg spoke with a friend of his in the Cuban area and its believed that she a spices foreign to North America and if that's so then it would be illegal for me to keep her. Greg offered to take her in captivity in the zoo or i would have to buy a legal licence to keep her. I wanted to leave her at the zoo because i thought it would the best for her but i just didn't want to leave her in a place where snotty nose children stick their ugly faces up to the glass day after day. I brought her back home but until then i found out it was a $800 fine for the licence. Love is no amount to money so of course i bit the bullet and bought the licence.



Figuring if she was a spices from the Cuban area then i should set up a tropical tank, a rain forest appeal. I assume i did something right because she ended up being very happy.

Puddles

Puddles was a southern leopard frog (a very common North American frog) i found during a camping trip. My family and i were going on a horse back trail ride when i noticed something hop in a little mud puddle on the forest floor. When i walked over closer to it i noticed a little frog head stick up out of the muddy water, but something wasn't right about him. He had only one eye. Once i saw i knew i had to catch him. Day after day i would walk back to that puddle with a cup and attempted to catch him. After the fourth day i finally caught him and got the closer look of his oddly shaped body. I was right that he did have one eye but all his legs were different sizes. All his limbs were either too long or too short and when he hopped he couldn't go in a straight line. Chances of a frog with this kind of disability wouldn't survive long, probably not even through his first year of hibernation. So i put him in a large Tupperware container with water and took him home.



Feeding Puddles was a challenge because he wasn't coordinated enough to head straight forward to his food crawling in front of him. Instead he would lunge off the right, away from his food. I ended up having to hand feed him. Other than his problems of eating he ended up being a beautiful adult Leopard frog with a strong vocal call. He lived to be five years old until he died of what i believe is a brain mental dis function from his disability's.



Since August, 1995, when the first deformed frogs was found in south-central Minnesota. Herpetologist have reported seeing frogs with missing limbs, extra legs, misshapen limbs, paralyzed legs that stuck out on odd places of the body, legs that were webbed together from extra skin, limbs fused to their body, and legs split into two halfway down. Some frogs have even been found with a missing eye (just like Puddles) with the other eye developing inside its throat.

Scientist have not yet found an answer to this unusual cause, without success. They say they dont believe it came from inherited mutations but from deformities caused by something at young age when developing from a tadpole.

Kumquat

Kumquat; or aka Problem Child; was one of my pet toads that had her own unique identity that i could never forget. She was a southern toad that i bought in a pet store along with Andy and Peach, also southern toads. Toads usually have this rough bumpy dry skin but Kumquat was born with a very rare genetic disease called Skin Wearing disease. When amphibians shed their skin they will secrete this liquid to moisten the skin and then they will use these "claws" on their feet to pull the skin off their bodies and pull it into their mouths. Yes they eat it and i know its very disgusting but this is how they receive some of their needed nutrients. They shall do this at least once every two weeks. Kumquat, on the other hand, did shed just like any amphibian but some of the skin will dry out to fast before she could peel it off and leave it feeling waxy. As she got older her whole body felt like the touch of a candle on it smooth sides, and it was shiny too. The skin wearing disease is only genetic, not contagious so it was safe for her to live in the same tank with her other companions.



As to how Kumquat got her name and nickname is an interesting story. "Kumquat" came from a Hawaiian Christmas song called Mele Kaleki Maka (don't trust if that is spelled right) my mother loves which mentions kumquats. The nickname Problem Child came from what we believe is the possibility of her mental disorder. I'm still unsure if the disease has anything to do with it or if she just has an odd eating appetite. Many times i have caught her trying to snap her tongue at her own foot and once i found her dangling off the end of my lace string on my sweatpants. This isn't normal feeding behavior in toads.



Komquat died last year on September 2009. Its hard to say what killed her but i believe it to be from old age. Its definate that she lived a full toad life span after living fours years with me and she had to atleast be two when i got her. She never endured any suffering when she passed away.

Plimento

I found Plimento last year during the early summer season on a dreading ninety degree day. My boyfriend and i went down to my lake house for a little weekend vacation getaway and near my house is an old abandon cattle farm with a cow grate at the end of the farmers driveway. I looked down into this 3 ft deep grate and there sitting on the bottom in the corner was this poor defenseless baby American Bullfrog. Knowing i didn't have the heart to leave it behind we went back to my house to grab my dads old Bass net and back up to grate. Four hours later of back bending work of burning our skins on the metal bars and crawling back and forth trying so desperately to catch this fast hopping frog; finally we caught him in the net. When we took him back to my cabin i noticed he was a little dried out and extremely skinny from no resource of food or water in the underground cage and i knew he wouldn't survive much longer if i just let him go. The only thing i had was an empty pimento cheese container to put him in, hence of how he got his name only over a period of time pronouncing it with an added "L" known as Plimento.

After awhile i started growing a bond with him and it was too difficult to let him go so i put in an seventy-five gallon terrarium and feed him his daily dinner of an adult mouse every night after school. Now he is back in perfect health and grew almost triple his size of approximately two pounds, full adult size.

These bullfrogs are extremely carnivorous creatures and will try to eat anything that fits in its mouth, including insects, mice, fish, birds, and even snakes.They are among the most wide-ranging North American amphibians that can be found almost anywhere in North America, Canada, and as far south as Cuba and Mexico near any freshwater pools. The males have a low baritone call almost resembling the mooing of a bull.

Introduction to my frog journal

In my last blog entry Herpetology i mentioned about a journal I've created of the history of all my pet frogs and toads. i mentioned the specific things i wrote about such as their age, what they ate, looked like, and when i found them. i have decided to now keep blog entry's of my journal notes and tell my readers more about the world of amphibians. i will write to you about my own personal pets and what made them so special to me and/or i will i tell you the history about their breeds.

I will begin writing about my top favorite stories of my past pet toads and frogs that i can tell you now were all found out in the wild. Some of my stories will involve midnight walks on train tracks, cow grates, hikes in the forest, and some will even be located out off state. Some of my present day pets are store bought just for the cause of needed adoption. One blog I'm very excited writing to you about is an exotic unknown species of frog/toad (still unsure) that i once had would have originally cost me $800 and a legal licence just to keep her.

Herpetologist write journals entry's for everything they find fascinating to them within their field. These blog entry's will be a great exercise for me to my future career in Herp. Keep updated every week on my new blog entry's. i hope you will enjoy reading them just as mush as i enjoyed writing them.

Herpetologist

Herpetology is a very unknown study in the zoology branch. Its refers to the study of reptiles and amphibians, Herp the Latin word referring to "the creeping animal". It may seem like an usual pick for a career field but knowing that I myself have grown up with the slimy, warty, and scaly little creatures all my life that it would be a perfect match for me. Though i do love all kinds of snakes, lizards, and turtles my passion is mainly focused on the amphibian world. When i was 10 years old i even began to keep journal entry's of every toad and frog I've ever kept. I would label them if they were stored bought or wild, their scientific breeds, when i found them and when they passed away, how they died, how long did i keep them, what their main diet was, the color patterns on their skin, and even their personality.

People mainly call me a liar for believing that a frog or toad even has a personality but for every record i kept could be enough proof for anyone. Some of my toads have a humorous appetite going after anything that moves, some to swallowing the ornament of a wind chime or even attempting to eat their own feet. Some of my toads are calm and relaxed, happy just to cuddle between the warmth of my fingers in my hand. People also have a hard time signifying the difference between a frog and toad. Frogs are known as Rana, Latin for "the aquatic webbed foot". Frogs spend most of their lives in the water but can live on land as well. They have smooth slimy skin and perform a symphony of colors. Toads (Bufo) on the other hand spend the majority of their lives on land, only step foot in water for a drink. They have a warty dry skin and can even be used as a leather textile. Because their home is mainly of land the majority of most toads you would find in North America would be the simple shades of browns and grays to blend in (camouflage) to the forest floors to hide from predators. Most frogs want to be seen by their predators, like the poisonous dart frogs for instance. Their skins put on beautiful show of neon's and all the other colors of the rainbow that easily stand out. These unusual colors tell their predators; such as birds and snakes; that they are extremely deadly and and if you eat them you will die.

Herpetologist doesn't just study the difference between a frog and toad but they study with their life styles and what we humans can do to save them, in fact they are now dealing with one of the greatest amphibious holocausts we have ever came to known. Recent studies show that just within this past decade one third of the entire amphibian population have been wiped out and it all thanks to us humans. Our homes and cities are tearing down the swamps and ponds, forests and jungles that originally belonged to the frogs, toads and other wild animals. And if this isn't enough we have now poisoned the water systems with our wastes creating a new disease called Chytrid spreading all over our world, even in places where a house is rare to come across to. The rivers and streams are the tiny veins of the earth making it extremely easy for this deadly plague to spread and the one place that is getting hit the hardest is the tiny strip of Mexico, Panama and Costa Rica. Panama and Costa Rica are the homes to one of the most beautiful and apparently sacred toad in the world; the Golden Toad. It appears to look like a solid golden frog due to its smooth skin; the males are golden as well but have these unusual black spotted pattern; though in fact they are toads due to most of its life spent on land. Millions of these toads used to walk the jungle floors and sang like tiny high pitched trembling whistles in the night. But when the hazardous Chytrid hit in their water streams, the jungles went completely silent. Now the only places you would ever see the Golden Toad would be held in captivity but Herpetologist are currently working for a break-through cure in dreams that someday soon they would return back to the wild.

So technically speaking i want to be a doctor specializing in frogs and toads. My dream in to receive my Herp major and eventually go down to Panama jungles and fight back for these magnificent frogs lives. For all frogs and toads in the world to give back their freedom from the plague and hopefully someday myslef hear the Golden Toad sing their song.