The bathroommate!

Casper loves his morning walks/runs and he will wake you up. He basically comes and licks all over your face till you are about to drown, slobbering as he licks. Though it is mostly Akanksha, I do get the face-baths sometimes. One such morning, I went in the bathroom to wash my face and then was to take Casper out.

“Damn rat!” I called out. Akanksha woke up wondering what was wrong.

“A rat probably was running around in the bathroom last night. My shaving foam bottle, brush, razor, all your tubes are fallen down. We need to do something about these…… HEY! LOOK AT THAT!!”

“What?”

“Loooook at her!” There she was. A female Polypedates maculatus, the Common Indian Tree Frog. I forgot all about the mess in the bathroom. She was beautiful!

Cozy hangout on my hair cream bottle.

She looked really cozy on top of my hair cream bottle. What a pleasant morning that was! These frogs are known to use the same roosting place for a long time. She started spending days here and at nights she’d be out hunting. She didn’t seem to get bothered by any activities. We started wishing her “good morning” and “happy night out”. She was the first thing we would look for the moment we enter the bathroom every morning. She was now part of our daily life; our very own bathroom-resident froggy!

One night we heard ‘things’ falling down in our bathroom.

“That rat is back again”

I rushed in …. but then came out laughing…! Froggy was happily hopping from one shelf to the other! So it was her the other night and I was blaming a rat. Now the mess was looking so cute!

I was thinking of a name for her. One evening Akanksha just randomly said “Your Champa is sitting on the flush tank”. She lovingly calls female individuals ‘Champa’.

“Hey that’s a nice name for her!” And so she was named Champa.

One morning I went in the bathroom, washed my face and was about to greet Champa, but she was nowhere to be seen.

“Akanksha, have you seen Champa?”

“No”

She did not come for the whole day. We were very worried, especially with predators like snakes, shrews, Casper? around. Is she gone forever??? I was a bit upset that evening.

Next morning I was yawning as I went in the bathroom.

“Akankshaaa!!”

“What?”

“Champa is back!”

I was so happy. She was back. She often stayed out for a day but was always back the next day morning. We were used to her ‘routine’ now. She is pampered at times. Once there was this grasshopper that hit the fan and was half dead. It was the perfect dinner for Champa! Click here to see what I did!

It was an awesome experience. Champa is now more or less a permanent resident and we love her company. But a few days back she did not come back for one night or the night after that or the night after that. Three nights in a row is not good news at all. I was hoping she’s safe and alright. Thoughts were discomforting. I was up till late night hoping she’d come back but she didn’t.

Next morning, I found my shampoo bottle, tooth paste, deo and the shaving foam bottle scattered on the floor.

The bathroom was in a mess.

She is back! :)

Checkered Keelback playing dead (Letisimulation) video

 I had written an article on Checkered Keelback playing dead (Letisimulation) some time back.  In fact, that was the first article of this blog!

You can read it here: http://wildinfo.blogspot.com/2009/02/playing-dead-observed-in-xenochrophis.html

At that time I was unable to trace the video that I had taken of the same.

Found it now and here it is: 

Sorry for the quality. The video was taken from a small digi cam. The snake was quite used to handling when this was taken and thus not giving her 
best performance, but you can get the idea. Hope you like it!

CROCODILE TRAINING : PART FOUR

The whole training and enrichment of crocodiles started off as an experiment. The current ‘model’ was going really well now, but there’s always that urge to try more things. In this case, try more crocs. All of the crocs in the training group were juveniles; around 6 years old. I remember bugging Ralf a lot when he was here.

“Do you think it is easier to train a certain age class?”


“No. It is all the same whether you train young crocs or big adults.” said Ralf.


“Really? Even the BIG ones?”


“Ya. They are often easier!”


Cool!

So that was my next plan. Train some big crocs. Of course enrichment is always attached with such programs. Now I needed a big croc, but which one? One day I was walking past pen 10. A background on this enclosure – This enclosure houses breeding Mugger females and one super lucky breeding male. He was having a tough time trying to keep all the females happy! Anyway, I just randomly called him “Rambo” and he looked at me! WHOA!!! I don’t know why he responded but that was the ultimate opportunity. You always identify ‘responsive’ crocs like this for training. It is not impossible to train any less responsive crocs but it is just much more fun with good response. I started calling him out and giving some rewards. Every time he responds to “Rambo”, he’s given a reward and this I carried on for about a week to reinforce his name. Once he knew his name he was like a dog when I call him.

Rambo coming out. Note the high walk.

Of course there’ll be days when he’s not in the mood and ignores me completely. But in the good days he is awesome. I first make him “jump” which he absolutely loves. Folks who have seen this up close know what I am talking about.

Rambo leaping for the meat. This pic would have been awesome if it was taken a second later.

Rambo is one of the fittest crocs at Croc Bank. He often manages to clear ground when he jumps and that is damn impressive for a 10-footer!

I wanted to do something really different with Rambo. Something that wouldn’t look like a simple trick that you can teach a croc. The next trick was ‘inspired’ from one of the youtube videos! There’s this guy who was working with a big Saltie, desensitizing him. Next thing he did was asked the croc to open its mouth and the croc did! I was speechless. How the hell do you teach a croc to open its mouth?!? How do you get the message through? I was breaking my head on HOW? I took that as a challenge, spent some time with Rambo and cracked the code!

Rambo with his mouth open.

Again, folks who have seen this up close will agree with the following part. It looks totally unbelievable. After the jumping, I ask Rambo to look “up” which he does perfectly well. After that the next command is “open your mouth”; Rambo opens his mouth! He gets a reward. “Up” and “open your mouth”, and he will do it again and again. It looks awesome. But How?

I was so overjoyed when I first taught him that. People just couldn’t believe that. When they saw it for the first time, they thought it was merely a coincidence that he opened his mouth.

"This is not real, right?" They would say.

"You don't believe what you see?"

“Rambo up” and “open your mouth” and I instantly had some astounded people!

Basically, all of the ‘tricks’ or ‘commands’ are based on the target croc’s basic behavior. I never entered the enclosure and always worked from outside but still managed to teach him to open his mouth on my command. Well, actually that was one of the easiest things to do! Rambo is a big guy. If he does “up”, which is looking up at me, for a longer time, he gets tired and drops his lower jaw; opening the mouth. When I noticed this first I went “Whoa! He just opened his mouth! Similar to that Saltie. Now I only have to make him understand that he has to do it when I ask him to.” When a croc is already doing the behavior that I want him to do, my job is half done. I only need to reinforce the behavior and associate a vocal command and reward with that. Every time during “up” when he opened his mouth after a bit, I would go “open your mouth” and give him a reward. Within three days he  figured that when he hears that vocal command he is supposed to open his mouth for which he will get a reward. I continued doing this everyday for a week and had a really cool trick on board!

I enjoy working with big crocs equally well. Next target group was from pen 8. Gerry and a group of herpers from U.K. helped build a wooden ramp for enrichment of the crocs. The basic idea is to get them up on the ramp and give them food there. This will give them ample exercise as they will have to come a long way considering the enclosure size.

Initial days need some extra encouragement

I managed to fit in “stay” when they reached the top of ramp.

Tommy performing "stay"

This whole activity is a big crowd puller and offers excellent education opportunity. We will be having some good talk accompanying it. Tommy and Gerry are the crocs that I am working with in this enclosure. They are big and impressive but I am waiting to try my hands on Monster, the largest male Mugger. That will be truly awesome.

END OF PART FOUR.

To be continued...

Eat, eat, eat. Relax.

Life is not so easy for carnivorous animals. They always have to be a step ahead of their prey, which is often very difficult. Success in hunting is not an everyday matter in spite of trials. If one meal lasts for two days there is no guarantee of a meal on third day. It could be a week or more before the next catch!

Adaptation is must for survival. It is simply a process whereby an organism becomes better suited to live in its habitat. Most of the predatory animals have developed one adaptive trait in common; being an 'opportunistic feeder'. This trait is extremely effective and can be commonly seen in almost all predators. I had seen several examples on T.V., crocs, komodos, hyenas, etc. stuffing themselves as much as they can. I always knew this for a fact but never put in any serious thoughts until a couple of weeks back; when I saw one of the best examples of opportunistic feeding in a much unexpected animal.

With the first rain showers, several thousands of winged male termites stormed Croc Bank. They were everywhere including my room. Our canteen lights were the greatest attractions. All the geckos were having an awesome time.

                           

Hemidactylus leschenaultii (left) and Hemidactylus frenatus (right) gorging.

In minutes, many started losing their wings and then was the time for frogs and toads. I was having a great time too enjoying the feeding frenzy. It was crazy. All of the insectivorous population was out busy eating. Eating? No, I mean stuffing themselves. My bathroom-resident female Polypedates maculatus was no exception. I actually got to hand-feed her for the first time that day! That was so cool.

Duttaphrynus melanostictus was almost as round as a ball!

“Hey”  I thought “This would be  a great time to stuff up my scorpions too”.

Akanksha caught some termites and offered my adult female Heterometrus xanthopus.

I could not have imagined what I saw!

Heterometrus xanthopus playing a pig with at least five termites in her mouth!

This species does not use venom for small prey items so she was just catching the termites one by one and stuffing her mouth like mad. It looked so funny like a kid stuffing chocolates in his mouth. The big female Heterometrus laoticus did the same. I had never thought that scorpions would do this but later I realized the importance of such behavior. So much of easy food does not come your way every day, so go ahead and stuff yourself with as much as possible and no tension of feeding for over a week! That would be such a great relief in the wild; like for the geckos, toads and frogs.