A Critter Corner Account

Recently I was walking in the playground, and I saw a couple of toads. Many toad species live in the United States. I caught a few of the warty amphibians and made a home for them in my tank on Critter Corner. Then I put them in my terrarium.

I wanted to find something else, so I walked down the driveway looking for lizards. At that moment I saw a flash of gray. I tried to grab hold of the lizard, but it got away. They are very fast and can escape you. I came back up to the playground and caught two more toads. The next day I fed my critters some news bees. News bees are very hard to capture!

I went back down the driveway to see if there were any more lizards that I could discover. I saw one. It was on the split rail fence. Since lizards are cold blooded, they will come out in morning to lie on the split rail fence to warm up in the sun. I walked up very slowly and grabbed him. It was a baby Eastern Fence Lizard. Females are usually bigger than the males. I did not know if it was a boy or a girl because he was small. I like hatchlings because their mouths are too small to bite. Besides they are very cute. He is only about six centimeters, including his long tail.

A couple days later I saw Bartimaeus, our cat, playing with something. I walked to him and saw that it was a rainbow skink, also known as a blue tailed skink. I took Bartimaeus away and grabbed the skink and put it in my habitat. It looked like it was hungry, so I gave it a pill bug to eat. It liked it, so I gave it some ants. Skinks can grow up to twenty centimeters in length. Mine was only about seven centimeters without his tail.

It has been an exciting time to watch my creatures run around and eat what I feed them in Critter Corner, our special place on the north side of our porch. I have learned a lot about amphibians and reptiles by looking after them every day.

~Isaac