rat snake texas

I found this huge wolf spider in my basement the other day. I decided to let her go in my garden to take out the grasshoppers and crickets.

The Surplus Exchange hosts a recycling event in the Greater Kansas City area on May 2nd, 2015. In addition to the Surplus Exchange, other humanitarian organizations including Heartland Habitat for Humanity and Goodwill were also present. Students and their families and friends made up a large percentage of the volunteers.

Dayna McDaniel, founder of the KC Seed Library at the Anita B. Gorman Conservation Discovery Center, greets a friend at the 10th Annual Plant, Seed, and Bulb Exchange on May 2nd, 2015 in Kansas City.

Okay, this is the first time that I've used the video feature on my digital camera, so be kind. However, I was able to get some footage of my captive bred Mantella cowani. This species is quite shy and I didn't have enough time to focus the camera before the little one got away. I keep cowani in a stream set up year round because cowani live around streams that don't dry up unlike other mantella species.

Captive bred Mantella cowani, the Halloween Mantella. These four frogs were captive bred at the end of 2010. Pockets, my oldest cowani, morphed out a week before Halloween :) . They are very challenging frogs to keep. I would honestly not recommend them for most frog keepers. They are difficult to maintain a healthy body weight because they are finicky about set-up and food. They have little interest in fruit flies. They do like crickets, but it can be difficult to find a reliable source of 1/8 - 1/4 inch crickets cheaply. However, termites provokes a feeding response as strong as a blue dart frog's. The challenge is: how to find a reliable source of termites 365 days per year?

My blue dart frogs, Mark and Jean. My female, Jean, gets the most footage while Mark tries to climb out the exo-terra vivarium door.