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Jonathan's Jungle
News from
March
and April 2009
20th
April 2009
I have had a very exciting
day today! I acquired a new adult female
Brazilian
rainbow boa which I am absolutely over the moon
about as she is SO beautiful! She is about
1.65 metres long and weighs just over 1.5kg.
Her name is Mrs Noah and here she is!
Rainbow boas get their name
from the fact that their skin appears to shimmer
with all the colours of the rainbow when light
shines onto it, and the effect is absolutely
astonishing in my opinion! For more
information about why this happens, and for lots
more pictures of her too, click on the blue text at
the top of the picture above!
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I also collected some new
animals yesterday, as I attended an invertebrate
trade fair in Northamptonshire and brought home some
new insects. Firstly I bought four different
species of stag beetles, all of which are beautiful
and with amazing antlers or horns as you can see
below! None of these beetles have common names
as there are so many hundreds of thousands of
species of beetle in the world that it would be
impossible to think of names for them all!
First up is
Dorcus
titanus typhon, a large Asian species and at
just under 9cm the largest beetle I have ever kept.
He might look a bit scary but actually he is
completely harmless, as long as you don't
deliberately put your finger in between his powerful
antlers!
Once again for more
information click on the name of the beetle, also
for these next ones too! Next up is
Odontolabis
versicolor, a southern Indian species which
looks and even feels like polished birch wood
furniture!
The third and fourth stag
beetles are much smaller than the above two,
and both are from Cameroon in Central Africa.
They are from a genus of beetles known as
Homoderus.
As well as the beetles I
also bought some new stick insects to top up my
already quite large collection and these included
some new Macleay's
spectre stick insects, one of my favourite
species but also one of a few which I haven't had
for a few months now! This is one of the
females which is close to fully grown but not yet:
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This morning I made a
really nice discovery, as I found that four of my
baby Imperial scorpions
(born on 29th January, check out the news story of
that date if you've not already seen it) had all
moulted their exoskeletons during the night!
The pictures below show these exoskeletons and it
might seem really hard for you to imagine how the
scorpions get out of them without breaking them into
pieces! Even after having actually watched
lots of my animals moult, I still find it
amazing how they do this and it is one of the most
interesting things about keeping animals with
exoskeletons like these!
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One piece of very
disappointing news is that the Hercules beetle pupa
pictured below has not made it into a beetle, but
instead has died. This was my first ever
Hercules beetle grub to pupate and I was really
hopeful that I would end up with a beetle but sadly
this time it was not to be. I won't give up
though as it is well known to be very tricky to
provide the pupa with exactly the right conditions
to develop successfully, and as this was my first
ever attempt I'm trying not to feel too sad about it
even though I was really looking forward to the
beetle emerging!
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1st
April 2009
A very exciting thing has
happened in my collection in recent days! One
of my male Hercules
beetle grubs has pupated, meaning that he is now
in the final stage of his change from squishy grub
to gorgeous beetle! I got quite a surprise
when I found him, as I was astonished at how much
his appearance had changed just hours after seeing
him as a grub! This is the scene which greeted
me when I got home from a day's visit to a school:
As you can see the
transformation is quite astonishing! The
object to the right of the orange pupa in these
photographs is the now-empty exoskeleton of the grub
itself, which had reformed its entire body before
breaking out of this 'case' to display its brand new
appearance - quite a makeover I'm sure you'll agree!
The completely empty case of the grub is pictured in
my hand below, and it is quite easy to see the split
which the pupa has made in it before emerging:
Even after many years of
keeping unusual animals I am still amazed by the
incredible changes which these species go through as
part of their life cycle, I'm sure you can see why!
I am very much looking forward to the day in a few
weeks time when the Hercules beetle itself, which is
now forming inside the orange pupa above, emerges
from his pupal case - watch this space...
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18th
March 2009
After months of searching I
have successfully found some new
Giant Asian praying mantids
and would like to introduce you to Margaret!
I always call all my female
giant Asian mantids Margaret and many people will
have met the 'original' Margaret a couple of years
ago! These are HUGELY popular animals with
children and adults alike and people often ask to
see them again if I revisit the same school/club, so
I am delighted to have them back in my collection
after a few months away! For more pictures and
information about this super mantis species please
click here.
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12th
March 2009
Zuri the Kenyan
sand boa has shed his skin this week and is now
looking absolutely beautiful. If you compare
his colours in the pictures below with the ones
before he shed his skin (in the news story dated 3rd
March 2009) you can see just how much more
attractive he is after shedding! He now has
his own webpage so for more information about this
lovely little snake please take a look by following
the link above.
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9th
March 2009
I have just discovered that
my female desert hairy scorpion is carrying a small
number of babies on her back! She must have
given birth at some point in the last week or two
during which time I have not seen her, as she has
been spending all her time either in her burrow or
concealed under one of the flat rocks in her
enclosure. I had not wanted to disturb her as
I knew that the birth was imminent and that it was
best not to disturb her at this time.
As you can see there are
only six babies in all, but unfortunately I did also
find a few babies which had not made it to this
stage alive. Why this might be is difficult to
say but the end result is sadly a much smaller
number than there could have been, and many less
than my imperial scorpions have had each time they
have had babies (most recently reported here on 29th
January 2009). These six babies seem quite big
and strong though so I am looking forward to
watching their development in the coming months...
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3rd
March 2009
I bought a lovely new snake
yesterday and I am very pleased with him indeed!
He is a Kenyan sand boa and is fully grown, being
about 6 or 7 years old. Kenyan sand boas are
one of the smaller boa species, and as you can see
from these pictures he is only tiny, being about
45cm long at the very most. Females do get
larger than the males but he is about as big as
males ever get!
He is about to shed his
skin which means that his colours are currently very
dull indeed. Once he has shed his skin he will
look very attractive indeed, with beautiful rich
orange markings on a very dark brown body.
I have decided to name him
Zuri, which is the Swahili word for 'cute' or
'attractive'. Zuri is a very friendly little
chap and even though he is about to shed his skin,
which is a time when some snakes can be a little
defensive, he is perfectly happy to be handled and
remains very calm when doing so - thereby making him
another perfect addition to my Jungle Roadshow
collection! More pictures to follow once he
has shed his skin so that you can see the colour
change for yourself....
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