Friday, November 14, 2008

Libby's Aquatic Frogs

Until Libby brought these guys home from school last year... I had no idea there was such a thing as an "Aquatic Frog". These are frogs (and we have two of them) that are small like a goldfish and actually live in water in a fish bowl and never live on land. When I agreed she could bring two of them home... I figured they would live about as long as a goldfish normally lives in a bowl... (a couple weeks if we were lucky)... but these guys have been with us for about six months, I think. They have names... Lindsey and Frogert ..... and Libby can tell them apart. They are reasonably low-maintenance pets... they need to be fed once and day and their water has to be changed at least weekly because it starts to really smell icky. I don't do anything special when I change the water- just run new water into the bowl at what I think is about room temperature... and add the anti-chlorine drops. I haven't killed them, yet. :-) The biggest issue is that they are hard to get out of the bowl while I am cleaning it. The reason is that they can leap surprisingly high when they are out of water. It's hilarious. So they will try to jump out of the net and they have succeeded a couple times. Sometimes they land in the kitchen sink and I'm afraid they will go down the drain. Once one of them landed on the kitchen floor and started hopping around, while Libby screamed "Oh no!" and I screamed, "Tim! Help me!"

A friend from church "babysits" them for us when we go out of town and even once called and asked if she could come get them for a day so her granddaughter could enjoy them. They are hilarious to watch... they often have their "arms" straight out and they appear to just be falling backward.

Below are some pictures- but it is really hard to get pictures of them. If you click on the pictures, they will get much bigger and you should be able to see them better.







2 comments:

Kristy said...

I had no idea about these frogs either. Sounds like interesting "pets" to watch, but there is NO WAY I would be cleaning that bowl, because there would be NO WAY I would have them jump at me, on me, or near me - nor would I want to catch them!

Ed Ditto said...

Next time we 'frob sit' I will try go tet you some better photos. Such fine critters deserve portrait quality pictures.

Ed