Salamander Update

Yeah, this is mostly just an excuse to post a ton of cutesy salamander pictures I've been taking lately. It seems like X, Y and Z's appetite changes with the season; right now since its spring they've all been extremely hungry. They're also getting a lot smarter. Every time I walk by the cage they stick their heads out looking for food, and yesterday when I went to lower insects into the cage Xenon jumped up into the air, mouth open, tongue outstretched, four separate times. How do they even have the muscle for that kind of thing!? Anyway, they're all about 10 inches long now, and Zinc is for sure a girl.

(Zinc is in the back, Xenon is the left-most foreground salamander, and Yttrium is on the right. You can tell them apart because Zinc has a black stripe down her spine, Xenon is full of spots, and Yttrium has thin, black stripes.)

A lot of people say that salamanders don't care whether they have company or not, but I'm not so sure. They tend to all congregate together in a big cute lump more often then not, so I think they enjoy each other's company. Also, the general opinion about plants in cages is that since salamanders burrow, they couldn't care less about whether or not there is greenery in their cages. I disagree. They seem to like burrowing in the plant's roots, and definitely like taking shelter under it. So I have no idea what those people are talking about.

I also recently gave them a bath, as you can see by the first picture on this post. It's one of those things that people tell you not to do, but salamanders are amphibians! And they seemed to like it, except for Xenon who is a huge poop and just wanted to climb out. I even took a video of that so if I get around to it, maybe I'll post it on youtube.

Anyway, that's that. Maybe I'll post again sometime soon. :)

Cockroaches. Yes, cockroaches.

So, you know that time in your life when you want to breed little insects as food? You know, like crickets? But, as you research what you have to do to make your own colony, you realize they're smelly, loud, and can escape their cage like no tomorrow? So then you go searching, trying to find if there is any alternative to crickets. Something meaty, not really tough, you know, something docile that won't do anything but sleep and eat and make babies?

Well, I've found it. Cockroaches. Tropical cockroaches. And after a month of troubles with ordering them (turns out it was just a simple misunderstanding), they've arrived. *deep breath*

THEY'RE CUUUUUTTTEEEE!!!

So the adults get about an inch to an inch and a fourth long; that's a picture of me holding a female while it just chills out on my hands. They remind me a lot of big fat ants to be honest; their head (which you can only see if you look underneath them) looks exactly like an ant head, although they lack any sort of little mandibles or anything. To be honest I don't know how they survive so well in the wild. They can't really climb, they can't bite, and they're afraid of pretty much everything including sunlight and slight movements. They also can't tolerate cold temperatures and if it gets below 70 degrees they refuse to make babies, so essentially if one gets loose it'll just scavenge around for a while and then die.

The males look a lot different then the females and they're not quite as fat; as you can see they have some big wings but no worries, they can't fly. In all truthfulness they are pretty much foolproof in terms of raising them, just keep them warm and give them food and they'll poop out babies with no trouble at all.

I hear that if you keep the conditions right they'll make more babies then you'll know what to do with, so maybe I can use that as an excuse to get another pet... *cough* beardeddragon *cough*

Oh gees, otherwise, a lot has been going on. School has been kicking my ass; I have a few cool art projects I want to get uploaded to DA though as a result so that should be popping up soon. I do have a few rough previews of what I have waiting, most of it is still in the works but here are a few crappy phone pictures anyway:

This guy is something I've been working on between painting projects; sometimes I think the assignments are retarded so to vent my frustration I work on this since I actually like it. Very controlled, pretty normal; for some reason a girl in my class really likes it, heh.

Also unfinished, and I'm not sure what I think about this guy yet. I'm not going to lie, it's like 90% taken from that flying machine monster in the movie "9." That bad guy made the movie worth seeing in my opinion... but you all know me and flying critters.

This one is actually complete, just not properly scanned or anything. Very different then my normal stuff, and I did a ton of color layering. I tried to do that thing where you slap on a lot of different colors and have the end result actually look cool, and I personally think it worked out. The picture obviously does not do it justice, but hopefully my final DA scan will be closer to what it actually looks like.

I have more stuff I could say, and I could go on another thought rant no problem, but I'll save that and maybe update again next week sometime. For now, I'm gunna go play with my buggies!

Worm Hunting

Sometimes, you just gotta go do something ridiculous. It might have a purpose, maybe not, but if one day you wake up, look outside, and decide you want to gather up a large quantity of worms, well, this is the blog post for you.

First of all, go barefoot. Why? Because everyone needs an excuse to go romping around in the mud, and worm hunting is one of those reasons.

Second of all, go after a rainfall. Why? Well, apparently worms come crawling out of the ground after a rain. I've never really seen it myself, but you might get lucky. And hey, you need after-rain mud to squish inbetween your toes, right?

Now, if you seriously want to go digging for these crawly critters (maybe for fish bait, maybe for animal food, maybe just for fun) digging around in the ground is a sure-fire solution. Just as long as you have some dirt you're sure to find some worms as well, assuming you dig around long enough. But the problem is, you don't get very many little creepy crawlies this way, and most of them aren't really big either. So, how can you improve your worm hunting skills? Well look for fallen branches and logs, silly!

In all seriousness, any object that has been plastered onto the ground (you can tell because the bottom bits will be sunk into the dirt a little) is what you're looking for. Warm up those muscles and push whatever you find aside, and sure enough you'll see tons of worms nestled underneath! Other critters, such as centipedes, slugs, and ants are also common, but whether or not you want to collect those too is purely optional.

Now this is when you have to be fast. The little worms aren't all that worried about what you just did, but the big fat ones (like nightcrawlers) get pretty scared pretty fast. Though you'd assume that the smaller worms would be the faster worms, this unfortunately is not the case. So if you're hunting for large prey rather then mere numbers, you have to be quick. Having a garden scoop is handy here; though worms quickly slide down into the dirt if you're careful you can dig them out before they crawl too far out of sight. Inevitably, you're going to lose some of them. But, how fun would this hunting experience be if you caught everything you were searching for?

And, well, that's all there is to it! Worm hunting might not be the msot exciting of sports, but lack of complexity is not directly proportional to lack of fun. However, an enjoyment of slimy things definitely helps.

Pictures are not related, but definitely hilarious. (Thanks to my dad for finding this in the first place.)

So, Yttrium is changing into an adult salamander.

*deep breath*

OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG!!!

His eyes, which were flat against his head, have started bugging out, and his tail fin has been getting much smaller. His gills have been shrinking, and he walks on his little legs more like a salamander does, with his elbows stuck out instead of laying flat against his sides. Xenon has been shedding (salamanders shed, did you know?) and his belly is lightening up quite a bit. I think that means he will be changing soon too! Zinc is still quite small so I think he has a ways to go. :)

I've been moving along on my T-shirt design as well, but I haven't been able to work on it as much as I'd like due to work and retarded coworkers who just quit without letting anyone know.

It's not nearly close to being finished but I fixed some of the anatomical problems and I'm playing around with the markings. Since Blogger didn't allow people to click on the image before, here is a link to a larger version of Rex: Click Me!

Any suggestions from you guys? If anything looks weird just let me know and I'll see if I can play around with it. :)

Otherwise, just a short post for right now I guess... 13 more days until I can come home! :D

Animal Personalities

The fact that animals have personalities has always been something that is very interesting to me. If you've observed a few animals for more than 5 minutes it becomes obvious that no two creatures are alike; they all have their own actions and quirks that are unique to them, much like humans. Assuming that animals have no sense of self (something that seems true but no one really knows for sure) it's pretty cool that beings that primarily react to the world and their bodily needs still have room for uniqueness. It shows that not all personality traits come from what us humans posess; perhaps our quirks are meerly amplified by our sense of self and do not originate from that part of us? Anyway, I digress.

Because I've had my salamanders for more then 10 days now, their personalities have been appearing! Zinc, the little guy, is the most active of the bunch. He zooms around the cage and bumps into the other critters, and likes to park in the corners and swim up and down with his nose against the glass.

Xenon is definitely the most intelligent. It only took him a few days to realize that "the big pink human" is the thing that gives him food. Whenever I come close to the cage he swims up to the side of the glass and looks at me, and when I put my hand in the water he'll swim up to it and push his nose against my fingers looking for food. This of course doesn't happen if he can't see me, but most of the time he does. :)

Yttrium is the most antisocial. He generally hides behind the fake plants a lot, and sticks to the back of the cage. However, when Xenon was busy exploring my hand today he did come up to explore as well; I'm sure he will become more friendly as time goes on. What silly pets. :)

All three of them like to swim against the current in the aquarium (created by my bubbler as it pours water into the tank) and they all seem to enjoy parking themselves on top of the plants and just sitting there. (Especially Yttrium and Xenon.) Unfortunately they all like taking nips at each other's tails as well, and Zinc has a chunk missing so I'm not so happy about that. Hopefully if I feed them enough they won't do it too often though! I'm also not sure of their genders yet, though once they mature it'll be easy to tell. So, even though I'm calling them all "he" right now they could all very well become "she"! We'll see what happens. :)

I'm also working on another T-shirt design. This one is sort of a play off the dog name "Rex." It's far from finished but here is the outline so far (you can click on it for a larger version):

It is going to be holding a tree in it's mouth and I want to make the expression more confused then it already is. Also, T-Rex feet have an additional back digit so I'll have to fit that in somehow... anyway, that's about all.

Only 20 more days until I come home! Who wants to hang out? ;D

Xenon, Yttrium, and Zinc

So I've finally come up with the names for my Salamanders. After thinking on it for a few days I decided to name them after some elements on the periodic table because, well, elements are cool! :) My first two choices were Zinc and Zirconium, with the possibilities of Tungsten, Xenon, Argon, and a few others. After mentioning it to Chad he said it was too bad I didn't have three little critters, because then I could name them Xenon, Yttrium, and Zinc. (X, Y, Z!) This seemed so cool to me that I couldn't quite let it go, and yep, you guessed it: I bought another little salamander.

This pretty much made the purchase of a new tank nessisary! So, I went out to walmart and picked up a nice 14 gallon glass tank. I definitely don't have the room for it but I placed it on the floor; right now it is cycling water and getting everything oxygenated for when I add X, Y, and Z.

So here are a few more pictures of Zinc (the little guy), Xenon (aka Fatty, the large dark one) and Yttrium (the large light one.) Only one more day and they'll be in their new, big cage! Hurray!

I really need to find a hobby so I stop talking about these damn salamanders. ;)

Salamander Care

Though it has only been a few days since I have gotten my two salamanders, I've already had to go through quite a bit of work to keep them feeling happy and healthy! The day after I made my last post I came home from work to find an unsettling sight. The smaller of the two salamanders had some strange, white fungus growing on its left hand and one of its gills! Of the two salamanders I brought home, this little guy was the one in the worst condition. Though he moved around healthily he was missing one toe on his right hand and two toes on his left, and he had a noticable red spot underneath his jaw. Seeing him develop fuzzies was obviously not a good sign! (Especially since the fungus on his hand was encasing where his two missing fingers were supposed to be!)

After some quick research I found that fungus on salamander larvae was not all that uncommon, especially around healing wounds. The cure was not too difficult either; the proper mixing of water and salt would help kill the infection and wouldn't hurt the little critter. I was a little skeptical that just salt would do the job, but I diligently mixed eight cups of water and two teaspoons of salt together into a nice saline mixture. (I technically wasn't supposed to use regular table salt but I figured it wouldn't be that big of a deal.)

After a half-hour bath in the mix, the little salamander came out with the fungus around his hand compeltely gone. The gill stuff was still there, however, so I gently wiped a wad of toilet paper against it. No luck. The wad of fungus did seem to go down, but there still was a lot of it there and it wasn't coming loose. So, I just put the little guy back in his aquarium, deciding to see how it looked the next day. But not a half hour later, the fungus had mysteriously dissapeared! I guess the salt really did kill it, and a little swimming around must have knocked it loose. So far there has been no sign of reoccuring fuzzies, and the little salamander seems even more active then before. :D Furthermore, the red spot underneath the little guy's jaw has been gradually shrinking, so I think he is healing up well. :)




In terms of eating, both of the salamanders have been doing well. I haven't seen the smaller one eat more then a couple little worm sections, but given his size that definitely would fill his belly. The larger of the two salamanders though... well, I think the fact that I keep calling him "fatty" about says it all. So far I've seen him stuff his face with two huge worm halves and six little worm pieces. It's actually quite ridiculous what he manages to shove inside his body. I swear the amount of worm that he has devoured equals more then he actually weighs, but sure enough he just keeps eating. What a fatty.

There is one thing I am a little worried about with these two. According to what I've read, salamander larvae like to have a lot of room to move around. (One suggestion was 10 gallons of space for every salamander you have!) But, given my current living conditions, it's just not possible to have more then the 1.5 gallon tank I have now. Furthermore, the amount of waste they produce in such a small space requires that I'll have to clean their cage once every few days or so. From what I've read on the internet, frequent handling and small spaces have a chance of stressing out the creatures, which makes them sickly and unhealthy and could possibly kill them. So far they seem just fine, but given how fast Fatty is growing (due to his enormous appetite I'm sure) I'm worried they might get stressed out and sick. I only hope that the two critters are strong enough to make it another month! Then I'll be able to get a nice big cage for them to move around in. :)

I still haven't decided on names for the two of them yet. I tossed around the idea of "Alpha" and "Omega" for a while, but even though "Omega" is like the most badass name ever "Alpha"... well, isn't. I'm still keeping those two names in mind but we'll see what else I can come up with. I defintely don't want the name "Fatty" to become permanent... maybe it could be a nickname though. :)

Tiger Salamanders

So, I wasn't planning it, but it seems that I have aquired a couple new pets! Two little baby tiger salamanders, to be exact! When they're little they have big tadpole tails, cute fuzzy gills, and tiny stubby legs. Eventually they mature into those black salamanders with big yellow spots that we are all familiar with. However, they are also known to grow up in their larval form, forever staying the little swimming critters that I have now. Basically, it's up to them! They live for about 10 years on average, and some have lived over 20; in either case they are easy to take care of whether they're swimming or crawling. I think they're really cute as they are right now, and will be just as cute if they decide to transform. :)

But how did I get these little guys? Well, the store that I work at has a bait shop among other things. And, I guess some people like to use baby salamanders as bait! I decided to buy a couple (at 60 cents each it was no big deal) and save them from their fate as fish food. I then of course had to go to Walmart and buy a little aquarium and some decorations, but after putting them inside they seemed to like it a lot! Assuming they survive my trip back home, I'm going to get a bigger tank and keep them with me over the school year.

So far neither of them have names, and I still don't have any good ideas. But I'm sure I'll think of something eventually (suggestions are always awesome though!) I guess tiger salamanders aren't too picky about their food, and so I've been putting worms into their tank and they've been eating them like crazy. Though the picture below is a little blurry, I even managed to get an action shot! Unfortunately the worm was too big for the little salamander's stomach, but once I split it in half one of the pieces mysteriously disapeared rather quickly. ;)

I'm going to try to take some better pictures as the little guys get settled. I never thought I'd have a pet quite like this one, but they are cute and energetic so I think they are perfect. :)

Now to name them! :D