museeumchick

Weta are everywhere, except when you want one try woodpiles and gumboots and places where you can find curled up bits of bark (they like little hidey holes during the day). and a small warning - ground weta bite readily, they are the only carnivorous weta (the rest are mostly herbivores that scavenge some) we have and are rather more tempramental than the rest.

At the party on friday i saw: mrs Babbit from sweeny todd A wearwolf a (chilly) playboy bunny a mime (impressively diddnt talk all night) MUSA president paul falloon various witches a dead cheerleader two jokers (from Batman), although the best was the joker dressed as the nurse (quite true to the film). Pinyata (sp) man a mexican in a big hat spider girl (many plastic spiders + superglue + skin) and many many more pictures to come (downloading is slow)

yet another magician of the animal world I am grateful that the houdini aspect was just on moving day, and not since :bounce:

I have some friends with allsorts of natives including both category 3 and non category 3 animals and have worked in partnership with DOC programmes in the past, but more recently the officer they worked with changed and there were some unfortunate incidents with the care of their animals when in DOC care these people are very experienced in keeping these animals, and are happy to contribute to long term conservation efforts but they havent been treated very well by the experts and there is some loss of confidence. I would like to think that 'owners' of native animals would be happy to help with conservation programmes, but the system still allows too many mistakes which doesnt leave alot of good faith for 'owners' its all a bit sad really i would think anyone who is successfully keeping non cat 3 species should be allowed to continue doing so regardless of whether there is a programme developed for them to work within. What happens if there isnt a programme at the mo = cant breed them = loss of potential breeding stock for future programmes? goodness that was more long winded than intended :oops: just some thoughts

let me see how organised i am this weekend in making digital copies, as i still use a wet-film camera (like from the dark ages). and southerngrrl, yep it was totally hilarious! although he took them off pretty soon after as he asid they were too small in most places (TMI!). after which they ended up o the TV arial as party decoration, i think they may still be there

has been in the talking over stages forever, but i geuss i hoped they would never get around to it. so for now it means the list of 'freely' allowed lizards has shrunk dramatically? thats what I understand. must consider how one goes about submitting to the contrary methinks. pondering.

http://www.doc.govt.nz/templates/page.aspx?id=73561 any thoughts? or translations? (what does this actually mean?)

A friend of mine got a tiny red g-string as a cast party prize, and he promptly put it on as the party was fancy dress he was already dressed as jesus jesus in a red g-string There are no words suitable!!

order some from biosuppliers and go from there

I tend to take any excuse to dress up this year i have been (missing some things coz this is off the top of my head) a: grasshopper lion (i had the coolest mane made of horsehair) Dr seuss character forest and soon to be a sandman then a ninja and theres still so much year to go

oops, its mufti day at work and i forgot never mind, my excuse shall be that the wild things dont come out till after dark. Anyhow, just wondering if anyone else shall be dressing up? and as what? I am going as the sandman/dream from the Neil Gaiman comics (beginning to wonder if anyone but the other comic book geeks will get it). :bounce:

you are allowed to keep weta, just not the giant ones. Leaving you with choices of tree, cave and ground weta (but nothing from a park or reserve please). i think tree are the easiest to keep but have personally only kept tree weta so cant compare. Stella has crabs :lol: (the NZ freshwater type), you could ask her - she seems delighted with them. I have had pet roaches and they were pretty cool, also a grasshopper but i dont think it was v happy being kept there are lots of things to choose from

they certainly are interesting characters but a delight to have today i could be considered a terrible tease, i have put the locust tank where the frogs can see them and am greatly entertained by their longing froggish looks (they cant be hungry, tummies full of waxmoth)

Should this go in the private trade and exchange? just a thought

What a handy little cleaning lady it seems to have tidied up all the slime (or whatever it was). most excellent

that was my first question, but no bulging belly but now two frog hath returned! :bounce: but where from? I shall never know (methinks i have a master of disguise, where could it have been!) but all's well that ends well

i have a funny feeling that my two frogs have turned into one overnight! i shall see whether the other one turns up later, but its just not that big an enclosure so i suspect the worst.

how small is small? i have seen a really cute tiny one (about 20cm cubed) and am tempted, very tempted.... but what would one put in such a tank?

? ok for what? mealworms dont escape, well mine dont and they are in a series of lidless ice cream containers in my desk drawer (although i am also a bit of a failure when it comes to mealworm farming. gah, i think i have just been harvesting them too much and need to let it recover and get going properly, sigh. as for them eating their way out of the fishies/ or did you mean roaches? either way my frogs get big roaches and mealworms whole and alive and seem to have no trouble with them so i cant imagine the fishies would be much different. mealworms are neet coz they keep wriggling after being dropped in the water so sill gather plenty of interest in your tank and vanish rather quickly i would imagine, although i have had them escape into the substrate never to be seen again (prob not an issue for you as they are unlikely to make it to the bottom of the tank) - i found all this when investigating whether my koura was interested in them (so far not really, but maybe some other time)

on teh topic of spongebob: My sister used to come home from school and have a spongebob (cheese sandwedge microwaved to a greasey yellow mess) and watch spongebob. :-? strange lass that one i always liked the ninja turtles and captain planet, i also remeber watching power rangers (do they count?) and am a big fan of bad /old batman stuff. now i quite like drawn together (sp?), but tend to prefer my comics in books rather than on TV now (Am a huge fan of stuff by Niel Gaiman and other bits like Fables and swamp thing)

lol mine comes over for a 'hug' too, or maybe ite more about defending its territory from the big faces peering in

the caves/hidey holes look fine to me, maybe it just likes to watch the pretty bubbles go past? as far as i can tell its happy, but i will be keeping an eye on it (its on my desk so how can i not)

ours spent nights in an enclosure i think (a big one though, my dad could walk about in it, so plenty big) and pottered about the place otherwise. They are natural pains in the butt really (more politely- mischef makers), stealing, noisey, messy, destroying stuff, pointy bits but thats what some people look for in a pet

i think its just a matter of washing it super thoroughly (although this is the case of all store brought vege). there might be another reason... anyone got something to add?

ofically a wierdo my koura is rather odd methinks in that it chooses to inhabit the corner behind the filter pipe (instead of the nice caves of driftwood at the other end of the tank) wierdo :roll: