Boogie Down Bugs

09/04/2025

It's like a cannoli but different. Scolopendra sp "White Beard" eating a Dicronorhina derbyana derbyana larva.

07/04/2025

Whenever someone sees my birds and asks for recommendations on what parrot they should get, my answer is always the same - don't. Most people aren't capable of properly housing a small budgie let alone a big parrot.

04/04/2025

Outstanding work!

04/04/2025

The world's rarest insect (with only 24 specimens) lives on the world's tallest sea stack! For a century, the Lord Howe Island stick insect was thought to be extinct, but in 2001, scientists rediscovered a small population clinging to survival on the seemingly barren rock face of Ball's Pyramid, the world's largest sea stack at 562 meters (1,844 feet). The insects had established residence on a melaleuca bush, the only plant life on Ball's Pyramid, and it turned out that this one bush sustained the entire population! What is more, this was the only bush on the entire island!

📷 Granitethighs

28/03/2025

It's finally Friday so let's get the weekend started off right with a group deal!
20ct Spirobolellus immigrans "Maui Skunk Stripe"
PLUS
12ct Anadenobolus ocraceus "Panama"
2 Day Shipping Included for 1_2_5
Message to order!

28/03/2025

Taxonomic vandalism by Scott Eipper and spreading false information.
Quite tellingly, he has blocked comments so people cannot correct him on his own platform, allowing him to persist with his bare-faced lie about a new discovery that never happened.
The correct species name is Colleneremia chunda Hoser, 2020, or if one chooses to put every tree frog in the genus Litoria, then Litoria chunda.
Either way, it was Snakeman who put in over 40 years of intensive fieldwork to discover this and quite a few other species of Australian tree frog.
The name "pyrina" is an illegally coined junior synonym published in breach of the Copyright Act and the ICZN Code and therefore should NEVER be used as correct.
See also:

https://www.sydneybusinesswebsites.com.au/two-frogs-illegally-renamed-junior-synonyms-created.htm

24/03/2025

It always starts the same way: “We found a baby rabbit and thought we could keep her.”

It sounds innocent enough. The grass was mowed, the nest was disturbed, the baby was alone. So someone scooped her up, brought her inside, and decided to give her a “better” life. A cage. A bowl of pellets. A name.

But what people don’t see is what happens next.

That rabbit, once wild and free, is now fated to spend her life in a small enclosure, deprived of everything she was born to do. To run. To hide. To dig. To choose. And when she doesn’t act like a pet, when she won’t cuddle or sit politely in someone’s lap, she’s labeled “antisocial,” “mean,” even “evil.”

She’s not evil. She’s wild. And that should have been enough.

At Cottontail Cottage, we have two wild rabbit ambassadors, rabbits who came to us with issues that prevented their release. Keeping them was never something we took lightly. Their indoor-outdoor habitat cost over $13,000 to build, and we’re in the process of expanding it even further. It’s a space designed with their instincts in mind: places to hide, to dig, to feel the wind on their fur and the safety of a large indoor climate controlled shelter when they choose it.

Because we would never keep a wild rabbit unless we could give them that kind of life.

Every year, we get contacted by people looking to surrender their “pet” wild rabbits, rabbits they took in as babies when it felt new and exciting, only to realize that wild doesn’t ever really tame. That novelty fades fast. And while we try to help every animal we can, the truth is: we don’t have the capacity to take them all.

And here’s the hardest part, every wild rabbit someone keeps as a pet and later wants to surrender takes up precious space in our rehab. Space that’s meant for animals who are actually injured. Animals in crisis. Orphaned babies. Survivors of trauma. We triage, we prioritize, and when an illegally kept wild rabbit shows up, it takes up a space from another animal in need of our help.

Some can be rehabbed and released. But some can’t. And most have never seen a vet, because it’s illegal to keep a wild rabbit without a license, and few veterinarians are willing to treat them under those circumstances. So they suffer in silence.

They’re not broken. They’re not bad. They’re just wild animals being forced into lives that don’t fit them.

They are not ours to keep. They are ours to respect. To protect. To let be.

And if we truly love them, we let them stay wild. 🤍

19/03/2025

I didn't always have the means, space, or frankly the knowledge to properly keep a parrot let alone a species as demanding as a cockatoo. These extremely intelligent and social animals need just as much mental stimulation as us. The bird room is still a work in progress but I really like how it's coming along. An outdoor aviary will be next to keep enriching Kukla and Leo.

19/03/2025

We get asked why we don't have a Morph Market store. While I have nothing against MM, I already pay enough for my own website and have enough work with that to make me go there. Maybe in time we will set up a front there, but nothing is planned as of yet.

17/03/2025

Some of the arachnids we have hanging around here featuring: Cyriopagopus minax, Davus pentaloris, Phidippus audax

17/03/2025

This female Cerbalus aravaensis came in with a missing leg. Since she is mature (and possibly gravid) she won't regrow it. These spiders are native to Jordan and Palestine so they have to be tough to survive.

14/03/2025

13/03/2025

Never thought about pigs needing their hooves trimmed

13/03/2025

Morning mouse butts