7 posts tagged “pets”
Yesterday I got three new fish - YoYo Loaches - presumably named because they're markings make it look like the word "Yo" is written several times across their sides (not a great picture for that, but trust me on that one). I know they eat snails, which for me was their main selling point since I still have a bit of a snail problem. When I got home I looked them up to see if there was anything important I should know about having them. Nothing incredible came out of it except this really weird bit of info:
A razor sharp movable spine under each eye? How flippin' weird is that? Thats like, x-men weird."A word of caution when purchasing these fish is to make sure that they are double bagged for the trip home. Being from the genus Botia these fish have a movable spine under each eye that is razor sharp. Care should also be taken when netting because if the spine should become entangled in the net, the fish can be injured."
I want a razor sharp movable spine under my eyes.
This is from my new phone. Teeny tiny and only 30 seconds. But hey, its a phone too.
Finally, I can post my fistank movies on comet!
Thank you comet team!!
When I drove out here from boston, I camped the whole way. My cat, Jupiter, is fine travelling, and he goes camping with me sometimes. One morning, somewhere in the ozarks my friend an I were cleaning up the campsite and about to leave. Jupiter had been cooped up in the tent for the night so I wanted to take him for a walk. He has a harness and a leash and walks around with me, and we took a walk through the woods.
Something spooked him and he freaked. I tried to pick him up and he bit my hand and did that clawing-bunny-hop thing that they do sometimes and bolted. He ran as fast as he could to the thing that he decided was safest, which was a 30 foot dead tree, with no branches.
He hung out at the top of it while my friend and I bandaged my mangled hand. Once he had a moment to calm down he realized he had no idea how to get down. We waited. And waited and waited. For two hours he just sat at the top of a tree meowing. Finally we called the arkansas park service (it wasnt camping season and the campsite was deserted besides us).
The operator thought it was a prank call when we said our cat was up a tree. "Are you serious?" she said.
She sent out the park service guys who propped up their 25 foot ladder but still couldnt quite reach him. There they were, two big burly arkansasian mountain men, standing up a neighboring tree going "here kitty kittyyyy, here kitty" in their highest pitch.
Eventually they got him and we loaded him and everything else in the car
and headed west.
Really, you have no idea how weird this picture is. My cat is not 'cuddly' as this picture might suggest. At least not usually. Ever since I moved into my new place he's been all about random kitty affection. Maybe he likes being only one of two cats in the house (as opposed to six cats and three dogs at my old place) or maybe he's appreciating his new robotic litter box (my nose is certainly appreciating it). I don't know, point is he's suddenly cuddly.
Most of you have met Dog, the Marketing Department's Aquatic Companion (MDAC), or at least know about him due to last week's brush with airy destiny (he jumped into my pen cup).
What you probably don't know is that I brought the plants in from my 20 gallon tank at home. My tank at home has a little bit of a problem. A snail problem. What started out as three snails, quickly became five trillion snails. I dont like to kill things but I can at least justify a little natural selection. I bought teeny tiny puffer fish that eat baby snails. So they, at least take care of the next generation and have a nice escargot meal at the same time.
You also may not know that snails lay eggs. It looks like clear jelly most of the time and it sticks to plants and you usually dont see it. You just get surprised by trillions of nearly microscopic baby snails about two weeks later.
Getting back to the point, these plants that I brought from home. I just noticed they have snail egg jelly alllllll over them. So I estimate that in about a week I will have at least 40 baby snails on my hands. They're sort of facinating and fun to watch. Maybe you'd like some of your very own? They'd live pretty well in a cup of water for a bit. You could take breaks and watch them. You could dress them up as your favorite star wars character and watch them battle. You could paint their shells bright colors and sneak them into that bag of skittles on your office mates desk. Otherwise, honestly, they'll probably get flushed.
Check back at my desk in a week and see if you fall in love with one of the little gastropodic wonders.
