Here's what going on lately for those who care to know.

The larval salamander I caught on the 4th of July in New Hampshire appears to be morphing. The gills are disappearing, the legs appear to be getting thicker, and the eyes are starting to bulge towards the top of it's head. In other words he/she is starting to look like an adult salamander. I have thrown a piece of Styrofoam tray in his/her critter keeper for him/her to climb out on to, but I fear that is not enough. I think I may have to lower the water before he/she drowns. Of course doing that will prevent the filter from working properly. What to do, what to do?

The greater hatchet-faced treefrog that I bought last April has finally begun to eat. Its amazing that he/she lasted all this time. He/she did lose a bit of weight, but still appears to be healthy. Too bad the other one didn't survive.

Recently, I have been kept awake by an unfamiliar call. It's a series of clicks and creaks When I first heard it, I thought it was something like a piece of furniture about to collapse, so I got out of bed and looked around. I went back to bed once I was satisfied that everything was ok. Since then it has been continuing every night. I think I have nailed down the culprit to my blue-webbed flying frog. He's awake every time I hear the call now. Unfortunately, I haven't caught him calling yet and I can't find any audio on what this species is supposed to sound like. So now I have four species calling there up in my room, the red-eyes, the fire-bellies, the tomatoes, and now the blue-webbed flying frog.

Speaking of tomatoes, I bought two more females last Tuesday night. I figure the ones I have now in with my male are blood relatives and I want to breed them, but I don't want to produce tadpoles that ride on the little bus to school. So that's why I bought the two new females. They are very nice and are eating like a fat man at an "all you can eat buffet".

My blotched tiger salamander continues to be treated for a respiratory infection, but it is eating and it fights me every time I have to medicate it. So I guess that's good news.

I am now up to 14 red-eye froglets which I have separated into two groups of seven. Even then they can be a handful to manage. As soon as I open the top they are all over the place. Not fun chasing little red-eyed leaf frogs all around. I still have quite a few tadpoles and I don't understand why they are morphing one at a time. Perhaps I am not changing the water enough.

I have been treating one of my red-banded rubber frogs for a spot on it's back. Unfortunately, I am out of amikacin and the vet is on vacation for the month of August (He deserves it big-time!). Of course it doesn't matter too much whether the vet is there or not. Last time I was there he was very short on the drug and told me that its no longer made. Bummer! The stuff works excellent for cleaning up infections.

I found a way to harvest bean weevils more efficiently from the beans. I found that this old cricket duster I have is perfect for this purpose. I just dump the entire culture into the duster shake it a little and the weevils drop into the lower chamber and while the beans stay in the upper. Before I did this I used to hand pick them out to feed them to the frogs and cave salamanders.

Last Thursday I did a presentation for the MSPCA on amphibians. I brought a cave salamander, the barred tiger salamander, a Mandarin crocodile newt, the Colorado River toad, a red-banded rubber frog, the blue-webbed flying frog, and a red-eyed leaf frog. It went well, the kids loved it, and I was able to teach them of the world amphibian extinction crisis. These kids left with an appreciation for a group of animals that are seriously in trouble. Hopefully they will spread the word.

Well that's it for now.