Critter Castle

Right before I left to go out of town on Friday I became a mommy again. About 27 times over.

I brought home four more African dwarf frogs, bringing the grand total number of amphibious pets to six. The frogs are much more comfortable with me now that there are more of them. They used to hide under the floaty grass stuff when there were only two, but now they boldly come right up to the edge of the tank and glare at me with their little froggy eyes as if to say, "Bring on the bloodworms, beeyotch." I guess it's a "safety in numbers" kind of thing.

I also brought home about a dozen millipedes. I'm not sure about the true number because the only way to count them is to dig them out of the dirt and count them with my bare hands while they wiggle. Wow. Did you feel the collective shudder of every woman who has read this blog? I had a full-on, total body shudder the first time I held one--yes, HELD ONE, with all its little squirmy legs--in my bare hands. Now I'm kind of used to it. But Ten warned me that they like to pee on people, so I think my millipede-holding days are over. This picture is pretty close to actual size--maybe even a bit smaller than actual size. They are large! Oh, and did I mention that female millipedes can lay between 20 and 300 eggs in the soil? Yeah! Lucky me, I could be a grandma to hundreds of baby millipedes in a few weeks. Oh joy.

I also brought home a male fiddler crab. Well, the size of his claw says he's a male, but you can't prove it by me. He's spent the last two days hiding in the water with nothing but his eye stalks breaking the water's surface. Come to think of it, that's that Dan does when I have PMS. Except he soaks in a garden tub of clean, hot water--not a a Dixie cup of dirty, briny filth vaguely redolent of shrimp pellets and crab poop. Okay, who am I kidding? There's nothing vague about that crab stank. It's foul. Trust me on this.

This poor guy is so claw-whipped. He's not doing the little clicky noises that the males are supposed to do to let the skirts know they're interested. He's not doing a little crabby dance, waving his big huge claw around to impress the ladies. He's just cowering in his paper cup, praying to the Crab Gods that I'll drop the shrimp pellets into his water so he doesn't have to come out to face the scary female. Great. I have the world's only gay fiddler crab. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Poor Ten so wanted baby crabs. How can I break it to him that his crab is more interested in redecorating the habitat than procreating?