Pets!

[mistressofmuses]

Been a while since a ~pet picture roundup,~ so why not.


Bella wants boba. Bella wants the boba that I have so bad.

Just one more of Bella, because I'm always posting pictures of Bella

Curled up as small as she can.

Berry Mad, mighty hunter!

One more of Berry Mad:

Alex sent me this picture, lol. Toad Butt!

One more of Guava Splash climbing their plant!

(Most of the Guava Splash pictures were in the last post, ha.)


A picture of Greenbean 2, eating her green beans! (Took this one to try and do a good size comparison.)

I had initially said that maybe Greenbean 2 was maybe a male, because the back end didn't look as prominent as the previous female katydid we had last year. However, in the last couple weeks, the ovipositor has gotten a bit more obvious. Greenbean 2 is definitely a female. :)

She has also remained very quiet; she hasn't made a single click. She is very calm in general; not terribly reactive even when we do reach into her cage to give her her beans or change out the climbing branches.

And now there are three katydids! Just a couple days after finding Greenbean 2, Alex found another katydid on the sidewalk outside. This one is clearly a male, but he is very fussy, lol. He seems to think that literally every single sound is another katydid moving in on his territory, so he sets off with a flurry of clicks. (Pouring cereal, clinking dishes, and crinkling packaging are all very exciting sounds for him.) Due to that constant clicking, Alex named him Clickbait.

Then just last night, Alex came in with yet a third katydid. This one is another male, and I named him Three. He's much less aggressive about posturing, haha. He's temporarily in the old spider terrarium until we get another of the mesh cages, but he settled right in to clicking and eating his green beans.

Clickbait and Three are providing excellent clicks in stereo.

More pictures of Greenbean 2, Clickbait, and Three:

One more of Greenbean 2. :)


This one is clickbait!


Clickbait again, with his partially-eaten green beans.


And here's Three. :) (Mediocre picture from after getting him set up last night.)

Jaspurr! With his one little toof that sticks out.

A couple more pictures of Jaspurr playing

Attack!


Slightly more dignified.

And then...

While I was spending time over at my mom and Taylor's house, they also ended up with a brand new pet.

Their neighbors rescued a garter snake from the window well of their church and brought it home. The neighbor said she thinks this might be a female, though it's hard to tell.

We had a garter snake for about twelve years or so, but he died several years back, and they still had the terrarium setup from before... Mom went back and forth on it for a while, but ultimately decided that she would like to have a snake again.


She's so cute!

More of the snake (as yet unnamed, as far as I know):

Exploring!


She does like the water.


So cute.


Still exploring!


Jaspurr finds her very interesting to watch, ha.

So there's the critter collection! :)

Comments

[soc_puppet]

Critters! 😍

Garter snakes look different in your neck of the woods 😮 The ones I remember seeing from my childhood seem to mostly be the Western Ribbon Snake, though Eastern Garter Snake, Plains Garter Snake, and Red Sided Garter snake are also possibilities. (I mostly remember black bodies with multiple long, yellow dorsal stripes, so Ribbon Snake seems the most likely candidate.)

[mistressofmuses]

It's really interesting just how much regional variation there is for garter snakes!

Ours looks to be a "wandering garter snake" which is one of the subspecies of "western terrestrial garter snake." But even within that species, those subspecies can look wildly different! Some are much more stripey, while these have the one dorsal stripe and then the sort of checkered pattern. There are some (I think mostly in California) that are partially red... so much variation!

[spikedluv]

Poor Bella! Give her the boba! *g*

Clickbait is such a great name!

[mistressofmuses]

Hahaha. She looooves boba. (And always winds up getting a not-insignificant amount of it out of my drink, ha.)

I loved the name! We'd been trying to come up with a good one, and then Alex thought up the perfect choice.

[umadoshi]

All the critters!

SNAKE. *swoons* (*performs ritual chant of "I can't have a snake because I don't know that I could cope well with feeding it"*)

[mistressofmuses]

I love all the critters!

I love snakes, but definitely understand the feeding issue. That's very much why I like garter snakes as opposed to others... they'll happily eat minnows, rather than having to deal with rodents. I like fish too, but it bothers me less than having to feed mice or rats.

[umadoshi]

That's very much why I like garter snakes as opposed to others... they'll happily eat minnows

Oooh. I wonder if that's true of the ones in our region...

[mistressofmuses]

I would guess it probably is! Though of course you'd want to find out for sure.

[omens]

Aww you have so many lil guys now! There was a katydid on my window the other day! I didn't know we got them, tbqh. It was a much paler green than yours though, and not as leafy looking - like almost a washed out neon green almost. I'm in love with Guava Splash :D

[mistressofmuses]

I enjoy having the katydids, even knowing they'll probably only be with us for a few months.

How exciting! I'm glad you had a katydid visitor! There are a lot of different kinds. Ours here are broad-winged/angle-wing katydids. I am always absolutely stunned at how leaf-like they look. (Even in their little habitats sometimes it takes me a while to find them, blending in on their greenery.)

Guava Splash is so adorable! So far they've continued eating pretty well, so I hope they're doing well all around!

[cosmicjellyfish]

I love all the beasties in this post! What a beautiful snek.

[mistressofmuses]

Thank you!

I love the snake. My mom tells me she also just shed!

[olivermoss]

Wow, that's a huge snake! Oh, wait, with a Jaspurr for scale snek now looks tiny.

Bella all cute and tiny! Lots of critters!

[mistressofmuses]

The snake is quite long - I'd say a bit under two feet? The perspective compared to the cat makes her look smaller than she really is, but she's about the circumference of my little finger.

Bella can fold up surprisingly small!

I enjoy the variety of critters.

[olivermoss]

At first I though the snake was way bigger than that, then a bit smaller

[mistressofmuses]

Her scale is hard to convey. No pun intended re: reptiles and scales, lol.

[scarlipswolfwife]

I love every single one of them. I might not enjoy bugs touching me, but I do enjoy looking at photos of some of them. I wish them well. We have colonies of wasps building nests on our patio again this summer, and I let them. Kathy lets them, too, as long as they're not in a doorway we have to move through. But they eat/scare away mosquitoes, so we have zero mosquitoes around most of the time. I talk to them all the time. They'll fly right up to my face and look at me, and I tell them they're pretty or handsome and that they are a blessing to have around, and then they'll fly off back to do their wasp things.

[mistressofmuses]

I had a long-standing dislike of wasps, having been stung in the eye as a kid, but I've tried hard to stop feeling that way, and have mostly succeeded. I'm happy for them to eat pest bugs, and they really are very interesting creatures.

[boujee_redneck]

Your collective critter collections are turning into quite the menagerie!

Aww, I wish I could scoop Bella up and give her cuddles - she so smol and gives much guilt and exudes epic sadness with those eyes haha. Jaspurr also looks adorably soft, fluffy, and ready for gratuitous cuddles!

Clickbait is *chef's kiss* of a name haha. xD

And wow that looks like a big Garter snake, at least compared to the garter snakes I've caught. She looks to be 18-24" long, easily? To add to similar sentiments above, she does have neat/unique patterning - I love how much variety Garter snakes have!

[mistressofmuses]

It really has turned into quite the collection! 1 canine + 2 amphibians + 3 insects here, and a feline and a reptile at my mom and Taylor's.

Bella manages to make herself so tiny and sad. Truly the saddest beast in the world who has never gotten even a single scrap of food or affection in her entire life. Not once.

Jaspurr is a chunky boy, but he is SO soft!

Clickbait was just such a perfect name! I was delighted when Alex thought of it.

Yup! I'd say she's somewhere in that range, probably just a little under two feet. And according to my mom, she just shed! Garter snakes have so much variety - it really is cool just how many different subspecies there are, and how different they can look.

[boujee_redneck]

Despite knowing quite the contrary, the obviously very beloved and spoiled Bella could absolutely manipulate me into believing she's starved for love, attention, and sharing whatever snack item I possess is *the* key to her happiness forever and ever with those looks lmao. She's good. xD

Oh my goodness I love cats with that inexplicably-how-is-it-possible-to-be-this-soft-softness haha. Obligatory --> send Jaspurr gratuitous pets and cuddles on my behalf.

Garter snake varieties remind me a lot of corn snake morphs actually. Super neat!

[mistressofmuses]

Bella knows how damn cute she is, and she has *certainly* mastered the puppy eyes. She's never had a single pet ever in her life. She's never even tasted food.

Jaspurr is SO damn fluffy-soft. I saw him briefly today, and he got extra chin scritches.

Corn snakes have so many fun morphs to them, too! It's very cool how much variety there is.