Chester

Posted on December 22, 2010 by Raymie

This is Chester.  He is an eastern box turtle that lives at the nature center at Heckrodt Wetland Reserve in Menasha.  He used to be a classroom turtle, but now he is retired and lives at Heckrodt.  He likes to hide under a log.  The lady that works at Heckrodt let me help feed him!  He eats berries and worms, but he didn’t want to eat last Saturday when I went to visit him.

Eastern box turtles live in the eastern United States.  You might see one in the wild in Wisconsin, but it would be very rare.  It is the state reptile of North Carolina.

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Alligator Snapping Turtle

Posted on December 21, 2010 by Raymie

This is an alligator snapping turtle that lives in a tank just inside the front door at Heckrodt‘s nature center.  This is a very large turtle that is probably about 2 feet long.  It hardly moves at all.  They even have a sign on the tank that says “This turtle is alive” because usually when you look, it is not moving.  They live in southern USA.

It eats fish, and it has a really neat way of catching fish.  It has a tongue that looks like a worm.  It even wiggles around like a worm.  So the turtle just sits there with its mouth open, and it doesn’t move at all except for its tongue.  Then when a fish swims by, it sees the tongue and goes for it.  When that happens, SNAP!  At Heckrodt, they have goldfish that swim around in the tank with the alligator snapping turtle.  I haven’t seen the turtle eat a fish yet, but while we were there on Saturday some other people saw it eat one.

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Crayfish

Posted on December 20, 2010 by Raymie

When we went to Heckrodt Wetland Reserve on Saturday, we saw a tank with baby crayfish in it.  They were only about 1/2 inch long.  The lady that works at Heckrodt told me that when they first got them they were even smaller.

Crayfish are also called crawfish or crawdads.  There are lots of different kinds of crayfish, and I don’t know what kind this is.  But they were really fun to watch swim around.  Maybe they’ll grow up to be a red swamp crayfish?

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American Bullfrog

Posted on December 19, 2010 by Raymie

These are American bullfrogs.  We saw the one above at Milwaukee Public Museum, and we took the picture below yesterday at Heckrodt Wetland Reserve.  Bullfrogs are native to eastern and central United States, including Wisconsin.  They have also been introduced to western United States, where they are threatening some of the native fish, birds, and frogs there.

Bullfrogs are very large frogs that can be up to 8 inches long.  They live 8-15 years.  They are carnivores that eat lots of different kinds of animals, including crayfish, turtles, large insects, other frogs, snakes, birds, small mammals, and fish.

In the picture above, you can see a large circle just behind its eye.  This is called the tympanum, and it’s the frog’s ear.

Bullfrogs can be different colors to blend in with their habitat.  The one above is green, so it probably lives in a green habitat.  Below the frog is brown, and it lives in a brown habitat.

Males call in June and July with a loud, deep hum while sitting in the water or on a plant.

Some people eat frog legs from bullfrogs, but I’ve never tried it.

Last week I wrote a post about baby American bullfrogs.  If you missed it, check it out with this link.

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Glass Bloodfin Tetras

Posted on December 18, 2010 by Raymie

These are my pet glass bloodfin tetras.  We have four of them and their names are Pio, Nineta, Nine, and Seventen.  Glass bloodfin tetras are also called glass bloodfins and x-ray fish.  These fish are very special because they have see-through scales.  You can see their bones and their stomachs.  You can also see right through them sometimes.  They have red tails, which is why they are called bloodfins.  From this picture, it might look like we have more than four, but the ones at the top are just reflections off the top of the water.  Glass bloodfin tetras are native to South America.  Their scientific name is Prionobrama filigera.

This is also a good picture of the live plant that we have in our tank.  It is an Anubias, which is an African plant.  The fish like to hide under its leaves, and our Plecostomus likes to suck on the leaves.

At the bottom of the picture you can see Creamsicle, our creamsicle lyretail molly.

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Neon Tetras

Posted on December 17, 2010 by Raymie

These are my pet neon tetras.  Their names are Big Neon, Little Neon, Medium Neon, and Blah Blah Blee.  We got them on March 13, 2010 from Petco.

Neon tetras are very colorful fish.  They have a bright blue stripe that runs from their eye to their tail.  Under that is a small, thin green stripe.  They have a red stripe that starts at their belly and goes to their tail.  Their belly is silver.  It looks very similar to the cardinal tetra, which have a red belly instead of a silver belly.  The cardinal tetra has a small, thin blue stripe instead of green.

My neon tetras are fun to watch.  They are very fast swimmers.  They are hard to take a picture of because they are always moving.  My neon tetras eat fast.  They charge up fast and grab a flake from the top of the water and then dive down to eat it, just like my harlequin rasboras.

In the picture above, you can also see the tunnel rock in my aquarium.  The tunnel rock is a rock with a hole in it that some of the fish like to swim through.  The neon tetras don’t usually swim through it, but I did see one of them swim through it once.

Neon tetras are found in the wild in South America.  It is a very popular fish to have as a pet.

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African Bullfrog

Posted on December 15, 2010 by Raymie

This is the African bullfrog.  It is also called a pixie frog.  It lives in southern Africa.  You can’t tell from this picture, but it is a really big frog.  It has a round body and grows up to 8 inches in diameter.  They eat insects, reptiles, small mammals, other frogs, and almost anything else that moves.  One time, an African bullfrog that lived in a zoo ate more than a dozen baby cobras.  They dig underground in the dry season and live there without food or water.  During the wet season, they come out and eat and lay eggs.  The male guards the tadpoles, who swim around him for protection.  But the male also eats some of the tadpoles.

Even though they are big, they are really good at hiding.  That’s why you can’t see very much of him in these pictures.  The picture below shows a little bit of his back.

We saw this frog at the Frogs exhibit at Milwaukee Public Museum.

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American Bullfrog Tadpoles

Posted on December 12, 2010 by Raymie

These are American bullfrog tadpoles.  Tadpoles are baby frogs.  The female bullfrog lays up to 20,000 eggs.  The tadpoles hatch from the eggs in 3-5 days.  Then the tadpoles swim around and slowly turn into frogs.  It can take 2 summers before they are frogs.  They live in ponds and lakes in the United States.  The tadpoles eat algae, organic material, and insect larvae.  They are about 5 inches long.

We took this picture at Milwaukee Public Museum on October 29, 2010.

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Smokey Jungle Frog

Posted on December 11, 2010 by Raymie

This is a smokey jungle frog.  It lives in Central and South America.  These are pretty big frogs; they can grow up to 8 inches long.  They eat insects, rodents, snakes, and other frogs.  They might even eat a small bird once in a while.  It is a nocturnal frog that hides under logs and leaves during the day.  Some people eat these frogs, and they have nicknamed them “Mountain Chicken.”

They have some defenses that are very interesting.  They have a sticky, yucky goo that oozes out of their skin.  But their best defense is that they scream when they are grabbed.  Watch this 1-1/2 minute video from BBC called “How to catch a screaming frog.”  I think you’ll like their scream!

If you want to see the frog in this picture, you can visit it at the Frogs exhibit at Milwaukee Public Museum.  But you’ll need to hurry because the Frogs exhibit is only there until January 2, 2011.

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Grey Crowned Crane

Posted on December 8, 2010 by Raymie

This is a grey crowned crane.  If you live in or visit southern Africa, you might see these cranes in Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Zambia, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Angola, Namibia, Botswana, or South Africa.  It is the national bird of Uganda, and it appears on Uganda’s flag.  Grey crowned cranes are very similar to black crowned cranes because they both have a crown of pretty golden feathers around their heads.  The grey and black crowned cranes are also special because they are the only crane species that roost in trees.

There is an African folktale that tells the story of how the crowned cranes got their feather crowns.  There was a great king who was lost in the desert.  He was hot and thirsty.  The cranes came and sheltered the king with their wings and led him to safety.  The king was so thankful that he gave the cranes crowns made out of real gold.  The cranes liked their new crowns, but some of the people became jealous and started killing the cranes and stealing the crowns from the birds.  The king was sad and wanted to help the cranes, so he waved his magic wand and turned the gold crowns into crowns of golden feathers.

The crane in this picture lives at the International Crane Foundation in Baraboo, Wisconsin.  We visited there in October.  You can read about more of the cranes that live there in my other crane posts.

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