Leafyfern - Flora And Fauna

Does anyone have snake sheds they could donate to me?

They dont have to be unravelled or stretched, just as long as they’re mostly one piece and free of feces or urine!

Shoot me an ask!!

tarantula by Linda De Volder on Flickr

After ten years and probably over a hundred individual skulls, I finally did it. I finally found one.

I found a white-tailed deer with a vestigial canine tooth

hey!! not having a Great Time because of school so can i get some wholesome facts about nurse sharks? they are my favs and that one time i got to pet one was truly a fantastic experience

sure! Nurse Sharks are incredibly social animals that hang out in large groups during the day. it’s why they’re so docile and allow humans so close- they are biologically predisposed to be Friends.

The more I work with tarantulas they less I understand the overwhelming fear and hatred most people have towards them (not talking about legitimate, involuntary phobias btw…just to be clear). Tarantulas are such oversensitive, helpless little babies.

Even the defensive species are mostly just cute and hilariously silly in their reactivity. “I’m so offended by the opening of my cage that I will now threat pose so hard that I almost fall over.” Like, we do this every week, little dude. Chill. Stop trying to fight your water dish.

I guess it’s hard to be scared of an animal you’ve seen violently flee from a prey item less than ¼th their size, or stand on tiptoes because they don’t like a new texture, or obsessively and meticulously clean every little spider-paw after a meal because it’s not polite to be dirty.

They’re like grumpy little eight-legged cats and I love them all.

emo about lichens again

☙ | 𝓈𝒶𝒸𝓇𝒶𝓁𝓊𝓃𝒶 𝓋𝒾𝒶 𝒾𝓃𝓈𝓉𝒶𝑔𝓇𝒶𝓂

Can i be completely honest?

I wasnt sure the display enclosures I built were the best choice. Even though i am pro enrichment and larger enclosures, i had my doubts that a ball python would use all that space.

The behavior im seeing is so awesome though. Like Khaleesi, who is 6-7 years old now, raised and bred entirely in a typical rack system for most of her life, is a very different snake. She would hide pretty much exclusively, even in my larger tubs. If you check the past posts- i believe i excitedly posted a photoset seeing her out for the first time ever a few months back. That alone was amazing to me. Now, my mind is blown. Youve seen the pictures, but im not sure you know how proud of her i am.

Look at that. Confidently chilling up top where the hotspot is about 95.

Part of me wasnt going to put her in a display. Not because ball pythons do poorly in large enclosures, but because i was certain she wouldnt use the space, whereas the animals i raised with enrichment would put it to better use. It sounds funny but i was scared i would find out animals treated like breeder would never take advantage of enrichment and thusly would not “need” it. That would make all of my efforts pointless.

Despite all that, I intuitively felt that she needed to be in the first completely finished display enclosure.

You can see, that was the right choice and she has expanded her behaviors.

I see her out and about, but shes also more confident. For example:

She started to periscope when the door was closed, and i was able to open the door and snap this picture without having her shirk away in fear or immediately seek a hiding spot to escape.

Watching her and the other females use their enclosures to perform different behaviors has encouraged me again.

And now, when i get responses like this:

I can smirk and laugh, because my animals are healthier.

Oh i also saw Asteria and Prometheus mating out in the open 🤷‍♀️

sensory

So, I’ve been pulled over a few times in my life. Not many, but a few. And I’ve also been in a couple of cars that got pulled over. And let me tell you, if you were actually doing something wrong, the officer doesn’t make any small talk, just straight into “I clocked you doing 70 in a 55.” The only time I’ve ever gotten the “do you know why I pulled you over?” was the time when I wasn’t doing anything wrong, and I got let go even though he insisted to the end that I was doing 87 in a 70 (white privilege at work).

“Do you know why I pulled you over?” is a trap. It means there’s a good chance the officer doesn’t actually have a good reason to ticket you, and is trying to get you to waive your 5th Amendment rights and incriminate yourself. If you make a guess, that’s a confession of guilt.

But there’s another trap, that I’ve heard of but haven’t yet experienced. It’s “do you know how fast you were going?” With that one, they’re hoping you’ll say no, because then they can name whatever speed they want – you just said you didn’t know how fast you were going, if you deny the speed they name then you’re lying to them.