Um. So I was pulling the plants out of boxes and taking the plastic sleeves off them and attaching price tags and whatnot, and after a few hours of this, I look down in the box of asparagus ferns I've been unpacking and see this guy.
(It's somewhat alarming, by the way, to look down into a box of plants and see movement. Just in case you'd ever wondered.)
There's no point in leaving him in the greenhouse, because the pesticides would get him. I couldn't bring myself to do that. Mercy killing was out of the question also -- that's never gone well for me either. So I caught him and brought him home, and now I have no idea what to do. We gave him a shot glass full of water and a few fragments of roast beef (the theory being that frogs are carnivorous, even if they don't normally kill and consume cattle -- though what a PBS nature special that would be), and a plant for oxygen, but this leaves a lot of questions open, obviously.
I suspect he's probably doomed regardless of what I do. But I'm willing to try to meet him halfway. Anybody want to make any wild stabs in the dark on this one?
UPDATE: I'm reasonably sure that what I have is a Hyla cinerea, or green tree frog. As it happens, they're a popular species of pet frog, and they're even the state amphibian for two states (LA and GA). The down side is that they are said to need a lot of space: the articles I ran into on-line all seem to agree that a ten-gallon is the absolute minimum possible, plus there's advice about non-chlorinated water and sterilizing terrarium materials in bleach-and-water solutions before adding them to the terrarium, and there's all this stuff about crickets, and . . . well, and I need another thing to take care of like I need another piece of caucus-related campaign literature, so something is going to have to be done. I just have no idea what one does with excess frogs. Pet stores? Animal shelter? Still trolling for suggestions, here. . . .
Oh, and -- they don't eat roast beef, but then we kind of suspected that.
UPDATE: The story concludes here.
Monday, December 31, 2007
I can has frog?
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4 comments:
When I worked at the garden center, a coworker planted a terrarium and put the critters that hitched up from Florida in there. I think we had lizards, not frogs, though. They did quite well.
Have you considered posting on the terrarium forum at GardenWeb? I think a lot of those folks own critters. Maybe someone is local enough to adopt your frog, or at least point you to a "frog animal shelter", if there is such a thing.
Good luck, and keep us posted!
I understand about looking down on something and seeing movement--like the time in Black Angus when the salad moved, and out crawled a green worm of some kind. What made it bad was I had eaten part of the salad. What made it worse was the waitress told me she would get another salad for me, rather than deduct it from the bill. She claimed no managaer was not available when I asked. Needless to say, I've never been back!
At least your little surprise is cute.
Aiyana
True about the cuteness.
Startling though it was, it still doesn't compare to the time this summer when I had black widow spiders crawling out of some cacti that a customer brought in to be repotted.
Oh my...how alarming (for both of you!). Contacting a local pet store may lead to some useful ideas and suggestions, depending on how knowledgeable the store is. It’s nice to see that you’re trying to save this little guy. Not everyone would be so kind…
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