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4 First Time Renters Mistakes We Made

When you move out on your own it is an exciting time. You are finally feeling like an adult and you are taking on a big responsibility. When you move out, you’re probably going to be renting a home or an apartment to start with. This is a wise decision until you’re financially ready to buy a home. What happens when you rent? What are some common mistakes you can try to avoid? Take a look here at the four common mistakes first time renters will make so you can be sure you’re prepared for your experience.

Read the Lease
Actually sit down and read through your lease agreement. Most times renters just sign it without actually reading the fine print. You need to understand the requirements you have as the tenant and what the landlord is responsible for. You want to know if you can have a pet, when rent is due, and what constitutes a late fee. All of these are important ideas you need to know. Make sure if you have questions about the wording of the lease, ask.

Moving In Without Inspecting the Property
Sometimes you may not be able to look at the property right away. Do not move your things in until you’ve toured the property and inspected it with the owner or property manager. There could be items in the home that are damaged that you’ll be responsible for if it is not brought up before you move in. Save yourself some trouble when it’s time to move out and walk through the home with your property manager.

Leasing From Someone Who Does Not Own The Property
Unfortunately with the housing market and the scams recently, some people have faced terrible consequences when renting. Some scam artists will lease out a property that they do not even own. This can lead to you being kicked out of your home by the sheriff’s office without knowing why. Be sure that the same person you are dealing with and that signs the lease is the actual owner of the property.

Not Being Prepared Financially
When it comes to moving into an apartment or renting a home, it can be quite costly. You have to pay deposits on the home, first month’s rent, and to move in can cost a pretty penny if you use a moving company. Do not underestimate the actual cost of moving in and what you’re prepared for when you arrive. There are also deposits for turning on power, water and cable in most locations as well.

About the author /

Julie Murphy


Starting today, Film Forum is hosting the cinephilic equivalent of the battle of the behemoths. This year, “Vertigo“ was named the best film of all time in the Sight & Sound critics’ poll, taking the title from “Citizen Kane” (which had held it in all of the poll’s previous editions since it was launched, in 1952), and the theatre offers a weeklong run of Orson Welles’s dethroned début feature (I’ve got a capsule review of it in the magazine), followed by a week of Hitchcock’s late-career labyrinth.

The question is inevitable—why the switch? Yet, in a way, the answer is obvious: “Citizen Kane” isn’t even Welles’s best film, and therefore can’t be the best film of all time. But why did it hold the title for so long? The answer to that question is equally simple: because it was the most liberating film of all time—there would be no “Vertigo” if not for “Kane.” Alfred Hitchcock, already in mid-career (he was born in 1899), was only one of the many established directors who, after the war, cut loose with wilder flights of directorial fancy. And if the end of the war was responsible, in part, for these new freedoms (as was the rise of independent producers due to the weakening of studios through antitrust suits) Welles’s film was the first to offer directors a prime example of what types of things these freedoms could be used for in the age of sound films. Welles’s uninhibited way with the soundtrack (due to his background in radio) enabled him to free up images—since he was able to frame the story with sound alone, he put onscreen a sort of distinct and diverse “image track,” using the camera to provoke emotion with a primal aesthetic ecstasy akin to that of music. His famous “deep focus” technique wasn’t utterly original, but his use of it was—he didn’t so much unify dramatic space as bend it; his sets and lighting were less a matter of aptness than of adornment. Welles performed the visual equivalent of freeing the orchestra from the pit, to play symphonies.

Voters in the 1952 poll would still have been reeling from the shock waves of “Kane”’s release. Now its real competition is from another, equally liberating film, “Breathless” (which polled only thirteenth on the new list, and for much the same reason—it isn’t Jean-Luc Godard’s best; rather, its greatness is, in significant measure, in what it sparked). No “Kane,” no “Vertigo”; but no “Breathless,” no widespread acknowledgment of “Vertigo.” The greatness of Hitchcock was first recognized and defined by the critics who became the New Wave directors, and their films are what ultimately confirmed the importance of their discovery—of Hitchcock as well as of other Hollywood auteurs, including Welles. It was Welles who made them think of movies as a young person’s art—they aspired to, like him, make their first features by the age of twenty-five. (François Truffaut made his first, “The 400 Blows,” at twenty-six.) In celebrating “Vertigo” as the greatest film of all time, film critics are not repudiating “Kane” but, rather, extrapolating from it, ratifying the French New Wave as the crucial revolution in the history of cinema.

Of course, Welles was attacked in the pages of this magazine—by Pauline Kael, in 1971, in a pair of pieces called “Raising Kane”—for having taken credit, literally and figuratively, that belonged to the screenwriter, Herman J. Mankiewicz, as if its script were the prime source of its importance. It’s a fascinating study. Kael reserves her greatest praise for Welles’s performance; what she praises of Welles’s direction is his spirit of playfulness—his openness to his collaborators’ suggestions and his rummaging in the bags of tricks he got from other films. According to Kael, Welles needed the system to fulfill his greatness, and his films grew worse when, possessed by the idea of his own grandeur, he was no longer able to play well with others (i.e., when he could no longer find a place in the studio system). In her view, whatever Welles’s own personal brand of greatness, it was largely the system that made his films great.

Kael writes that she was twenty-one when “Citizen Kane” came out; she was a voracious moviegoer, she says, and saw the film in terms of its place in the industry and the conventions of the times. She says that, in retrospect (i.e., detached from its context), it plays as much more exciting, but one of her goals is to fit it back into its context, one in which studio heads exercised maximal power over their productions. The studios would never again be such tightly fitting and unified entities; “Citizen Kane” helped to do what F. Scott Fitzgerald imagined a great producer would say on his deathbed: “When Stahr is sick he keeps saying give it back to the directors again. Don’t leave it with these men. Give it back. I took it away from etc.”

The tightly produced studio film of the thirties remained Kael’s lifelong vision of what a Hollywood movie should be. That’s why, in the nineteen-fifties, when Hollywood erupted in a kaleidoscopic burst of directorial invention, with films that traded an earlier era’s uniformity and smoothness for extravagant personal visions, she damned it, in one of her first major articles (“Movies, the Desperate Art”). Overlooking or, in some cases, repudiating some extraordinary films, she considered a time of directorial creativity to be a time of decadence and failure. She didn’t think much of Hitchcock, either (at least, not of the films of the full flowering of his genius, those of the fifties and early sixties). Godard’s genius she recognized, albeit with intermittent and finicky enthusiasm (also turning away from his later films). Her mitigated and condescending praise of “Citizen Kane,” upon seeing it again, at thirty years’ remove from its release, is revealing:

Now the movie sums up and preserves a period, and the youthful iconoclasm is preserved in all its freshness—even the freshness of its callowness… Welles’s “magic,” his extraordinary pleasure in playacting and illusion and in impressing an audience—what seems so charming about the movie now—was what seemed silly to me then. It was bouncy Pop Gothic in a period when the term “comic strip” applied to works of art was still a term of abuse. Now Welles’s discovery of movie-making—and the boyishness and excitement of that discovery—is preserved in Kane the way the snow scene is preserved in the glass ball.

Kael patted the owner of Rosebud on the head. She praised “Citizen Kane” looking backward—nostalgically, as a vestige of the studio system, to the enthusiasms of her own youth, and to Welles’s own, rather than ahead, to the self-renewing youth of the cinema that it inspired, and to the tragic consciousness of future trials that it heralded. In any case, she missed out on much of that future, even when it was already in the past.


Quantum Forest

notes in a shoebox

Category: asreml (page 2 of 2)

Coming out of the (Bayesian) closet

Multivariate linear mixed models: livin’ la vida loca

I swear there was a point in writing an introduction to covariance structures: now we can start joining all sort of analyses using very similar notation. In a previous post I described simple (even simplistic) models for a single response variable (or ‘trait’ in quantitative geneticist speak). The R code in three R packages (asreml-R, lme4 and nlme) was quite similar and we were happy-clappy with the consistency of results across packages. The curse of the analyst/statistician/guy who dabbles in analyses is the idea that we can always fit a nicer model and—as both Bob the Builder and Obama like to say—yes, we can.

Let’s assume that we have a single trial where we have assessed our experimental units (trees in my case) for more than one response variable; for example, we measured the trees for acoustic velocity (related to stiffness) and basic density. If you don’t like trees, think of having height and body weight for people, or whatever picks your fancy. Anyway, we have our traditional randomized complete block design with random blocks, random families and that’s it. Rhetorical question: Can we simultaneously run an analysis for all responses?

Up to this point we are using the same old code, and remember that we could fit the same model using lme4, so what’s the point of this post? Well, we can now move to fit a multivariate model, where we have two responses at the same time (incidentally, below we have a plot of the two response variables, showing a correlation of ~0.2).

We can first refit the model as a multivariate analysis, assuming block-diagonal covariance matrices. The notation now includes:

  • The use of cbind() to specify the response matrix,
  • the reserved keyword trait, which creates a vector to hold the overall mean for each response,
  • at(trait), which asks ASReml-R to fit an effect (e.g. Block) at each trait, by default using a diagonal covariance matrix (σ2 I). We could also use diag(trait) for the same effect,
  • rcov = ~ units:diag(trait) specifies a different diagonal matrix for the residuals (units) of each trait.

Initially, you may not notice that the results are identical, as there is a distracting change to scientific notation for the variance components. A closer inspection shows that we have obtained the same results for both traits, but did we gain anything? Not really, as we took the defaults for covariance components (direct sum of diagonal matrices, which assumes uncorrelated traits); however, we can do better and actually tell ASReml-R to fit the correlation between traits for block and family effects as well as for residuals.

Moving from model 3 to model 4 we are adding three covariance components (one for each family, block and residuals) and improving log-likelihood by 8.5. A quick look at the output from m4 would indicate that most of that gain is coming from allowing for the covariance of residuals for the two traits, as the covariances for family and, particularly, block are more modest:

An alternative parameterization for model 4 would be to use a correlation matrix with heterogeneous variances (corgh(trait) instead of us(trait)), which would model the correlation and the variances instead of the covariance and the variances. This approach seems to be more numerically stable sometimes.

As an aside, we can estimate the between traits correlation for Blocks (probably not that interesting) and the one for Family (much more interesting, as it is an estimate of the genetic correlation between traits: 1.594152e-01 / sqrt(8.248391e + 01*2.264225e-03) = 0.37).

Covariance structures

In most mixed linear model packages (e.g. asreml, lme4, nlme, etc) one needs to specify only the model equation (the bit that looks like y ~ factors...) when fitting simple models. We explicitly say nothing about the covariances that complete the model specification. This is because most linear mixed model packages assume that, in absence of any additional information, the covariance structure is the product of a scalar (a variance component) by a design matrix. For example, the residual covariance matrix in simple models is R = I σe2, or the additive genetic variance matrix is G = A σa2 (where A is the numerator relationship matrix), or the covariance matrix for a random effect f with incidence matrix Z is ZZ σf2.

However, there are several situations when analyses require a more complex covariance structure, usually a direct sum or a Kronecker product of two or more matrices. For example, an analysis of data from several sites might consider different error variances for each site, that is R = Σd Ri, where Σd represents a direct sum and Ri is the residual matrix for site i.

Other example of a more complex covariance structure is a multivariate analysis in a single site (so the same individual is assessed for two or more traits), where both the residual and additive genetic covariance matrices are constructed as the product of two matrices. For example, R = IR0, where I is an identity matrix of size number of observations, ⊗ is the Kronecker product (do not confuse with a plain matrix multiplication) and R0 is the error covariance matrix for the traits involved in the analysis. Similarly, G = AG0 where all the matrices are as previously defined and G0 is the additive covariance matrix for the traits.

Some structures are easier to understand (at least for me) if we express a covariance matrix (M) as the product of a correlation matrix (C) pre- and post-multiplied by a diagonal matrix (D) containing standard deviations for each of the traits (M = D C D). That is:

M = \left [
v_{11}& c_{12}& c_{13}& c_{14} \\
c_{21}& v_{22}& c_{23}& c_{24} \\
c_{31}& c_{32}& v_{33}& c_{34} \\
c_{41}& c_{42}& c_{43}& v_{44}
\right ]\) \(
C = \left [
1& r_{12}& r_{13}& r_{14} \\
r_{21}& 1& r_{23}& r_{24} \\
r_{31}& r_{32}& 1& r_{34} \\
r_{41}& r_{42}& r_{43}& 1
\right ]\) \(
D = \left [
s_{11}& 0& 0& 0 \\
0& s_{22}& 0& 0 \\
0& 0& s_{33}& 0 \\
0& 0& 0& s_{44}
\right ]\)

where the v are variances, the r correlations and the s standard deviations.

If we do not impose any restriction on M, apart from being positive definite (p.d.), we are talking about an unstructured matrix (us() in asreml-R parlance). Thus, M or C can take any value (as long as it is p.d.) as it is usual when analyzing multiple trait problems.

There are cases when the order of assessment or the spatial location of the experimental units create patterns of variation, which are reflected by the covariance matrix. For example, the breeding value of an individual i observed at time j (aij) is a function of genes involved in expression at time j – k (aij-k), plus the effect of genes acting in the new measurement (αj), which are considered independent of the past measurement aij = ρjk aij-k + αj, where ρjk is the additive genetic correlation between measures j and k.

Rather than using a different correlation for each pair of ages, it is possible to postulate mechanisms which model the correlations. For example, an autoregressive model (ar() in asreml-R lingo), where the correlation between measurements j and k is r|j-k|. In this model M = D CAR D, where CAR (for equally spaced assessments) is:

C_{AR} = \left [
1 & r^{|t_2-t_1|} & \ldots & r^{|t_m-t_1|}\\
r^{|t_2-t_1|} & 1 & \ldots & r^{|t_m-t_2|}\\
r^{|t_m-t_1|} & r^{|t_m-t_2|} & \ldots & 1
\end{array} \right ]\)

Assuming three different autocorrelation coefficients (0.95 solid line, 0.90 dashed line and 0.85 dotted line) we can get very different patterns with a few extra units of lag, as shown in the following graph:

A model including this structure will certainly be more parsimonious (economic on terms of number of parameters) than one using an unstructured approach. Looking at the previous pattern it is a lot easier to understand why they are called ‘structures’. A similar situation is considered in spatial analysis, where the ‘independent errors’ assumption of typical analyses is relaxed. A common spatial model will consider the presence of autocorrelated residuals in both directions (rows and columns). Here the level of autocorrelation will depend on distance between trees rather than on time. We can get an idea of how separable processes look like using this code:

This correlation matrix can then be multiplied by a spatial residual variance to obtain the covariance and we can add up a spatially independent residual variance.

Much more detail on code notation for covariance structures can be found, for example, in the ASReml-R User Guide (PDF, chapter 4), for nlme in Pinheiro and Bates’s Mixed-effects models in S and S-plus (link to Google Books, chapter 5.3) and in Bates’s draft book for lme4 in chapter 4.

Longitudinal analysis: autocorrelation makes a difference

Back to posting after a long weekend and more than enough rugby coverage to last a few years. Anyway, back to linear models, where we usually assume normality, independence and homogeneous variances. In most statistics courses we live in a fantasy world where we meet all of the assumptions, but in real life—and trees and forests are no exceptions—there are plenty of occasions when we can badly deviate from one or more assumptions. In this post I present a simple example, where we have a number of clones (genetically identical copies of a tree), which had between 2 and 4 cores extracted, and each core was assessed for acoustic velocity (we care about it because it is inversely related to longitudinal shrinkage and its square is proportional to wood stiffness) every two millimeters. This small dataset is only a pilot for a much larger study currently underway.

At this stage I will ignore any relationship between the clones and focus on the core assessements. Let’s think for a moment; we have five replicates (which restrict the randomization) and four clones (A, B, C and D). We have (mostly) 2 to 4 cores (cylindrical pieces of wood covering from tree pith to cambium) within each tree, and we have longitudinal assessments for each core. I would have the expectation that, at least, successive assessments for each core are not independent; that is, assessments that are closer together are more similar than those that are farther apart. How does the data look like? The trellis plot shows trees using a Clone:Rep notation:

Incidentally, cores from Clone C in replicate four were damaged, so I dropped them from this example (real life is unbalanced as well!). Just in case, distance is in mm from the tree pith and velocity in m/s. Now we will fit an analysis that totally ignores any relationship between the successive assessments:

Incidentally, our assessment setup looks like this. The nice thing of having good technicians (Nigel made the tool frame), collaborating with other departments (Electrical Engineering, Michael and students designed the electronics and software for signal processing) and other universities (Uni of Auckland, where Paul—who cored the trees and ran the machine—works) is that one gets involved in really cool projects.

What happens if we actually allow for an autoregressive process?

In ASReml-R this would look like (for the same results, but many times faster):

Oops! What happened to the significance of Clone and its interaction with distance? The perils of ignoring the independence assumption. But, wait, isn’t an AR(1) process too simplistic to model the autocorrelation (as pointed out by D.J. Keenan when criticizing IPCC’s models and discussing Richard Mueller’s new BEST project models)? In this case, probably not, as we have a mostly increasing response, where we have a clue of the processes driving the change and with far less noise than climate data.

Could we improve upon this model? Sure! We could add heterogeneous variances, explore non-linearities, take into account the genetic relationship between the trees, run the whole thing in asreml (so it is faster), etc. Nevertheless, at this point you can get an idea of some of the issues (or should I call them niceties?) involved in the analysis of experiments.

Spatial correlation in designed experiments

Large applications of linear mixed models

In a previous post I summarily described our options for (generalized to varying degrees) linear mixed models from a frequentist point of view: nlme, lme4 and ASReml-R, followed by a quick example for a split-plot experiment.

But who is really happy with a toy example? We can show a slightly more complicated example assuming that we have a simple situation in breeding: a number of half-sib trials (so we have progeny that share one parent in common), each of them established following a randomized complete block design, analyzed using a ‘family model’. That is, the response variable (dbh: tree stem diameter assessed at breast height—1.3m from ground level) can be expressed as a function of an overall mean, fixed site effects, random block effects (within each site), random family effects and a random site-family interaction. The latter provides an indication of genotype by environment interaction.

First I should make clear that this model has several drawbacks:

  • It assumes that we have homogeneous variances for all trials, as well as identical correlation between trials. That is, that we are assuming compound symmetry, which is very rarely the case in multi-environment progeny trials.
  • It also assumes that all families are unrelated to each other, which in this case I know it is not true, as a quick look at the pedigree will show that several mothers are related.
  • We assume only one type of families (half-sibs), which is true just because I got rid of all the full-sib families and clonal material, to keep things simple in this example.

Just to make the point, a quick look at the data using ggplot2—with some jittering and alpha transparency to better display a large number of points—shows differences in both mean and variance among sites.

Anyway, let’s keep on going with this simplistic model. In my computer, a two year old iMac, ASReml-R takes roughly 9 seconds, while lme4 takes around 65 seconds, obtaining similar results.

The residual matrix of this model is a, fairly large, diagonal matrix (residual variance times an identity matrix). At this point we can relax this assumption, adding a bit more complexity to the model so we can highlight some syntax. Residuals in one trial should have nothing to do with residuals in another trial, which could be hundreds of kilometers away. I will then allow for a new matrix of residuals, which is the direct sum of trial-specific diagonal matrices. In ASReml-R we can do so by specifying a diagonal matrix at each trial with rcov = ~ at(Trial):units:

There is a big improvement of log-Likelihood from m2 (-744452.1) to m2b (-738011.6) for 30 additional variances. At this stage, we can also start thinking of heterogeneous variances for blocks, with a small change to the code:

At this point we could do extra modeling at the site level by including any other experimental design features, allowing for spatially correlated residuals, etc. I will cover some of these issues in future posts, as this one is getting a bit too long. However, we could gain even more by expressing the problem in a multivariate fashion, where the performance of Mothers in each trial would be considered a different trait. This would push us towards some large problems, which require modeling covariance structures so we have a change of achieving convergence during our lifetime.

Disclaimer: I am emphasizing the use of ASReml-R because 1.- I am most familiar with it than with nlme or lme4 (although I tend to use nlme for small projects), and 2.- There are plenty of examples for the other packages but not many for ASReml in the R world. I know some of the people involved in the development of ASReml-R but otherwise I have no commercial links with VSN (the guys that market ASReml and Genstat).

There are other packages that I have not had the chance to investigate yet, like hglm.

Linear mixed models in R

A substantial part of my job has little to do with statistics; nevertheless, a large proportion of the statistical side of things relates to applications of linear mixed models. The bulk of my use of mixed models relates to the analysis of experiments that have a genetic structure.

A brief history of time

At the beginning (1992-1995) I would use SAS (first proc glm, later proc mixed), but things started getting painfully slow and limiting if one wanted to move into animal model BLUP. At that time (1995-1996), I moved to DFREML (by Karen Meyer, now replaced by WOMBAT) and AIREML (by Dave Johnson, now defunct—the program I mean), which were designed for the analysis of animal breeding progeny trials, so it was a hassle to deal with experimental design features. At the end of 1996 (or was it the beginning of 1997?) I started playing with ASReml (programed by Arthur Gilmour mostly based on theoretical work by Robin Thompson and Brian Cullis). I was still using SAS for data preparation, but all my analyses went through ASReml (for which I wrote the cookbook), which was orders of magnitude faster than SAS (and could deal with much bigger problems). Around 1999, I started playing with R (prompted by a suggestion from Rod Ball), but I didn’t really use R/S+ often enough until 2003. At the end of 2005 I started using OS X and quickly realized that using a virtual machine or dual booting was not really worth it, so I dropped SAS and totally relied on R in 2009.

As for many other problems, there are several packages in R that let you deal with linear mixed models from a frequentist (REML) point of view. I will only mention nlme (Non-Linear Mixed Effects), lme4 (Linear Mixed Effects) and asreml (average spatial reml). There are also several options for Bayesian approaches, but that will be another post.

nlme is the most mature one and comes by default with any R installation. In addition to fitting hierarchical generalized linear mixed models it also allows fitting non-linear mixed models following a Gaussian distribution (my explanation wasn’t very clear, thanks to ucfagls below for pointing this out). Its main advantages are, in my humble opinion, the ability to fit fairly complex hierarchical models using linear or non-linear approaches, a good variety of variance and correlation structures, and access to several distributions and link functions for generalized models. In my opinion, its main drawbacks are i- fitting cross-classified random factors is a pain, ii- it can be slow and may struggle with lots of data, iii- it does not deal with pedigrees by default and iv- it does not deal with multivariate data.

lme4 is a project led by Douglas Bates (one of the co-authors of nlme), looking at modernizing the code and making room for trying new ideas. On the positive side, it seems to be a bit faster than nlme and it deals a lot better with cross-classified random factors. Drawbacks: similar to nlme’s, but dropping point i- and adding that it doesn’t deal with covariance and correlation structures yet. It is possible to fit pedigrees using the pedigreemm package, but I find the combination a bit flimsy.

ASReml-R is, unsurprisingly, an R package interface to ASReml. On the plus side it i- deals well with cross-classified random effects, ii- copes very well with pedigrees, iii- can work with fairly large datasets, iv-can run multivariate analyses and v- covers a large number of covariance and correlation structures. Main drawbacks are i- limited functionality for non-Gaussian responses, ii- it does not cover non-linear models and iii- it is non-free (as in beer and speech). The last drawback is relative; it is possible to freely use asreml for academic purposes (and there is also a version for developing countries). Besides researchers, the main users of ASReml/ASReml-R are breeding companies.

All these three packages are available for Windows, Linux and OS X.

A (very) simple example

I will use a traditional dataset to show examples of the notation for the three packages: Yates’ variety and nitrogen split-plot experiment. We can get the dataset from the MASS package, after which it is a good idea to rename the variables using meaningful names. In addition, I will follow Bill Venables’s excellent advice and create additional variables for main plot and subplots, as it is confusing to use the same factor for two purposes (e.g. variety as treatment and main plot). Incidentally, if you haven’t read Bill’s post go and read it; it is one of the best explanations I have ever seen for a split-plot analysis.

The nlme code for this analysis is fairly simple: response on the left-hand side of the tilde, followed by the fixed effects (variety, nitrogen and their interaction). Then there is the specification of the random effects (which also uses a tilde) and the data set containing all the data. Notice that 1|block/mainplot is fitting block and mainplot within block. There is no reference to subplot as there is a single assessment for each subplot, which ends up being used at the residual level.

The syntax for lme4 is not that dissimilar, with random effects specified using a (1|something here) syntax. One difference between the two packages is that nlme reports standard deviations instead of variances for the random effects.

For this type of problem, the notation for asreml is also very similar, particularly when compared to nlme.

In this simple example one pretty much gets the same results, independently of the package used (which is certainly comforting). I will soon cover another simple model, but with much larger dataset, to highlight some performance differences between the packages.

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Day 20-30

I’ve noticed that the treadmill desk still takes quite a bit out of me when I use it for many hours a day, although I’ve managed to avoid the pains and soreness associated with bad ergonomics and an inclined/declined treadmill. I went on a hike and was surprised as to how tired I was. (Much more than usual). Perhaps it would be prudent to take a break from the treadmill before going on a hike or backpacking trip during this time frame.

Day 5-10


Marine protected areas (number) in Morocco

Marine protected areas are areas of intertidal or subtidal terrain--and overlying water and associated flora and fauna and historical and cultural features--that have been reserved by law or other effective means to protect part or all of the enclosed environment.This page has the latest values, historical data, forecasts, charts, statistics, an economic calendar and news for Marine protected areas (number) in Morocco.

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The Basking Spot: Better than Basic – Betta Bowl Enrichment – June, 2013

by Jennifer Greene

Now, I know bettas aren’t really reptiles, but we carry them as well as tons of items for their care.  They’re a popular “desk pet”, and they are very low maintenance fish that many people find easy and rewarding to keep.  They come in a wide range of colors, and in recent years they also come with several color, pattern, and fin mutations for a kaleidoscope of beautiful iridescent colors you can keep in a little ½ gallon bowl on your desk.

Just because a betta fish can live in a small bowl does not mean they shouldn’t live a rewarding little fishy life, though.  I’ll be reviewing a few inexpensive items that you can add to your betta’s life to keep it entertained, exercised, and help extend its life for many years.  A well cared for betta can easily live over 10 years, and there’s no reason your betta shouldn’t live that long too!

Bettas very quickly learn the routine of begging for food, and can easily become overfed and even fat.  To maintain your betta on a diet to keep it slim and trim, try using a ZooMed BettaMatic  for the routine daily feedings.  This little automatic feeder distributes one pellet a day for your fish, which is enough food to maintain a creature that inhabits ½ gallon of water for its entire life.  You can add variety to the diet by offering treats in the form of Mysis, daphnia, or bloodworms, all of which are aquatic invertebrates that are small enough for your betta to eat.  ZooMed makes a serving size ideal for one betta with the Dial-A-Treat food container, and also comes with a neat little spoon feeding tool for you to offer your betta food with.  Keep that little tool, it comes in handy later!

Tank Décor

Give your little guy some privacy!  Add some betta-sized fake plants for them to hide behind, like bamboo leaves or papaya leaves.  Many keepers believe that bettas can live with live plants, and even eat bits of the roots or leaves, but this is not the case, and leaving your betta with just a live plant to eat will result in the fish going very, very hungry.  Use fake plants that you can easily clean, and keep live plants for your vivariums or larger aquariums – a betta bowl just isn’t enough tank space to adequately keep plants and bettas happy in one container.

In addition to decorating your bowl, there are also these cute little suction cup leaves  you can add to your tank.  Why give your betta one little leaf near the top of the bowl, you ask?

Because they like to sleep on them, of course!

In the wild, bettas will rest on foliage near the surface in order to easily take gulps of air, and when you give them a leaf to sleep on in their bowl, they’ll happily take advantage of it!

In addition, you can teach your betta to do amazing betta tricks using the leaf.  I personally have taught my bettas to jump onto their leaves to eat food (using that little red spoon that comes with the Dial-A-Treat mentioned earlier!), and so have other staff members.  With patience, you can teach your betta to be a miniature shamu too.  Start small by teaching your betta to go to the red spoon for food, and then you can easily teach the betta to follow the spoon to get a tasty treat reward.  Spend 5 minutes a day teaching your betta to tap its nose to the little red spoon to get fed, and you’d be amazed how quickly you can get your betta to follow that spoon anywhere in the bowl!

If you’re not that dedicated to training your betta, you can also provide exercise opportunities by placing a betta mirror in the bowl for no more than 5 minutes at a time.  When betta breeders were asked what products they’d like most for their bettas to live healthier, longer lives, they actually requested an item like the betta mirror to help provide them with exercise.  A fit betta is a happy betta!  Just be careful not to leave the mirror in the bowl for too long – your betta can get worn out and stressed from constantly attempting to fight the betta they see in the mirror.

Water Conditions

In order for your betta to maintain his best colors and thrive in your care, you’ll need to make sure he’s living in clean, warm water at all times.  I highly recommend changing out at least half the water in his bowl every few days if you do not have a filtration system, and you should always treat the water with a water conditioner to remove any chlorine or other chemicals.  In addition, as these are tropical fish, they thrive best in water temperatures between 78 and 82 degrees – much warmer than the average office, and most homes.  Heat up the water a few degrees with a tiny little betta-sized water heater to make sure your betta stays bright and active for you.

More Aesthetically Pleasing than a Plastic Bowl

Do you have a classy office or home, and a plastic betta bowl just isn’t your style?  Give your betta a miniature, betta sized aquarium – 2 gallon Fluval Spec aquariums filter the water, eliminating the need for constant water changes, and with the light, clean water, and extra swimming space, your betta will THRIVE!  Bettas in larger water areas, even up to 10 gallon aquariums, develop longer fins, brighter colors, and even grow larger.  Many keepers don’t realize bettas can live in slightly larger aquariums, and I successfully kept a betta and several neon tetra fish in the stylish Fluval Chi aquarium for several years.

As you can see, you can do so much more than just keep a betta in a sad, bare little plastic bowl on your desk.  Try enriching your fish’s life, and add just one or two of these neat and inexpensive items to your betta routine.  There is something extremely rewarding in seeing your betta go from a limp, listless fish in a cup to a robust, brightly colored little jewel in your aquarium.  Give it a shot!

Tips for the Naturalistic Look – March 2014

By Jennifer Greene

Tip 1: Put Tall Stuff in Back!

Tip 4: Don’t be afraid to move things around!

Tip 5:  Use a nice water bowl

Tip 7: Keep Practicing!

Vivarium Humidity – March 2014

By Curtis Pieramico

Tropical Vivarium setup for dart frogs

One of the author’s dart frog tanks filling up with fog.

Owning One of the World’s Deadliest – March 2014

By Noah Collins

Dart frogs have made their way into the herpetology field. Though some species are quite deadly in the wild, a simple change in diet stops the production of poison for captive specimens. In captivity, dart frogs are fed a diet that consists mainly of flightless fruit flies or crickets. Drosophila hydei and Drosphila melanogaster, the most common fruit fly species used used, as well as crickets are not rich in the alkaloids needed to produce the frog’s poison. In the wild, dart frogs feed on invertebrates from Central and South America where insects rich in theses alkaloids thrive. The frogs are able to synthesis these alkaloids from their prey in order to produce their toxins. As dart frogs secrete poison that predators must ingest, rather than actively injecting toxins into prey (the way venomous snakes do), they are considered poisonous rather than venomous. In fact, some dart frog species are considered the most poisonous animals on planet Earth. In order for a frog to harm another organism the toxin must enter the body through a cut or be ingested. Fortunately, captive dart frogs pose no risk of hurting humans.

Bumblebee Dart Frog – Dendrobates leucomelas

One of the most interesting species of poison dart frogs is the Golden dart frog (Phyllobates terribilis). This species of dart frog, when encountered in its natural habitat, is the most lethal. In the wild this species can create a poison called Batrachotoxin. Batrachotoxin is classified as a neurotoxin, and usually causes an organism to suffer from cardiac arrest. There is currently no cure for an individual who has had Batrachotoxin poisoning. This poison is so powerful that it is said to be much stronger than Morphine. The Phyllobates genus of poison dart frogs contain the only species of dart frogs that can create this poison. Due to the high toxicity, Amazonian natives use the frogs in the genus Phyllobates to hunt. The natives gently wipe their darts or arrows on the frogs back so that their prey will die when the darts or arrows stab into their bodies. This way the natives do not have to hit their targets with a lethal shot, but rather just pierce the skin so that the prey will succumb to the poison. The terms “Dart Frogs” and “Arrow Frogs” commonly referred to by hobbyists, derive from the way natives use them to hunt.  The term is generally applied to any of the small, brightly colored South American frogs, but only 3 of the most toxic species from the Phyllobates genus are actually used by Amazonians to poison the tips of their darts.

Some of the most common types of dart frogs in captivity are of the Dendrobates family. The Bumblebee dart frogs (Dendrobates Leucomelas) are one of the most abundant dart frog in captivity.  Bumblebee dart frogs produce a different kind of poison than the golden dart frogs do in the wild. Bumblebee dart frogs, as well as other Dendrobates species of dart frogs, produce Pumiliotoxin. Although this toxin is not as potent as Batrachotoxin, it still can be very dangerous. Even being hundreds of times less potent than Batrachotoxin, Pumiliotoxin causes paralysis, difficulty moving, and in severe cases death. This toxin causes irregular muscle contractions, putting the heart at risk.

Another species of dart frogs that is capable of producing Pumiliotoxin is the Dendrobates tinctorious, or the dyeing dart frog. One color variety is commonly mistaken for being a unique species – the blue azureus locale.  This frog is very unique in its display of vibrant blue colors. Each frog has a unique pattern of black spots on its back making it possible to identify between other frogs of the same type. This is similar the Bumblebee dart frogs because each Bumblebee dart frog has a unique banding that can be used to tell the frogs apart. These are frogs all have unique patters that distinguish them individually in a similar way that finger prints are used to distinguish human apart.  They also have different morphs of dart frogs in captivity. These morphs are caused through selective breeding. Breeders have created banded Bumblebee dart frogs where solid bands of black and yellow wrap the frog.

There are hundreds of types of poison dart frogs available to be kept as pets. Most species can live five to seven years in captivity. Because they have a decent life span in captivity, there is large number of offspring that can come from just a single pair. This is allowing them to become easily available and due to the sheer number available, new morphs are being created regularly in more species than just the Bumblebee dart frogs.

Since dart frogs cannot make poisons in captivity, they can make a great display pet for hobbyists because they are diurnal (awake during the day). Most dart frogs have vibrant colors used in the wild to show that they are dangerous and warn predators to stay away. Because of this, a dart frog’s security does not come from hiding like most animal species, but rather from being out in the open displaying warning colors. The dart frogs in captivity behave in the same ways they behave in the wild. Most dart frogs are not going to hide or sleep all day. This makes them a great “show” animal. Dendrobates auratus dart frogs are green and black, and their patterns often resemble a camo design. Again, each design is unique to each frog. They are one of the few dart frogs that are green in color. Although these frogs blend in to the green environment around them more so than species like the  Dendrobates tinctorious, they still stand out. Species like the Dendrobates auratus are a little shyer in captivity. Though they are out during the day, they are quicker to hide than other dart frogs if spooked. This type of shy behavior can be related to how potent the frog’s poison would be in the wild. Usually the most poisonous are brightly colored and the less poisonous are more likely to be subtly colored.  Although color can be used to describe how toxic the frogs can be, size does not relate to the toxicity of the animal.

There are species of dart frogs that stay very small like the blue jean (Dendrobates pumilio) dart frog. These frogs get no bigger than the average person’s thumbnail. This gives this group of frogs the widely used name of Thumbnail frogs. Most Thumbnail frogs are kept by experienced keepers because they can be less hardy than other species of dart frogs. Tinctorious species of dart frogs can get much bigger than thumbnail species. Some of these frogs get over two inches in length. Most Tinctorious species are territorial and will often bully other frogs of smaller size. Unlike the golden poison dart frogs who live in small groups, called an army, the Tinctorious species are more of loners in the wild. In captivity however, they can often be housed in pairs or trios. As long as the frogs are of similar size and have adequate room to roam around, they can do just fine together.  It is best to monitor your frogs closely when first introducing them, though, to ensure that there is no bullying between individuals.

Dart frogs are an animal that many scientists have taken an interest into studying. They are also making their way into the pet world and proving to be some of the most unique pets.  I highly suggest keeping one or more for yourself – there’s tons of species out there to try!

Care and Reproduction of the Golfodulcean Arrow Frog – March 2014

By Anthony Neubauer

The Golfodulcean Dart Frog is a classic to the dart frog hobby that comes from the dense rainforests of Costa Rica.  Adults grow to a decent size of 1”-1.5”, and are attractively colored. Their care is relatively easy provided a few essential steps are taken to ensure their survival. They tend to be more heard than seen, often fleeing when approached. However, their singing makes up for their lack of boldness. The call is a loud trill that can be heard from somewhat of a distance. It is by no means annoying, and adds to the “coolness” of this species. They also breed like rabbits, with my group producing clutches every 2 weeks. If you’re looking to getting into keeping and breeding dart frogs, you’ve found the ideal frog for you.

As the name suggests, wild Phyllobates are extremely toxic. Although vittatus are not as poisonous as their relatives such as P. terribilis, they still pack a deadly touch. Their toxin is a neurotoxic alkaloid that causes severe pain, mild to severe seizures, and sometimes even paralysis in extreme cases. In captivity, even wild caught specimens quickly lose their toxic nature. This is because their poisons are produced through their natural diet of poisonous ants, which is obviously not present in captive diets.

As with all dart frogs, poison is of no concern unless dealing with freshly wild caught specimens.

Choosing an enclosure

When it comes to choosing a tank for any dart frog, one must consider their need for a high humidity level. The terrariums manufactured by Exo Terra are a favorite among many dart frog enthusiasts, including myself. The front access doors making the daily spraying, checking for eggs or tadpoles, and other maintenance a breeze. I currently house my group of 5 in an Exo Terra that measures 36” x 18” x 24”. This is definitely larger than necessary, however they use every inch of floor space, and males can often be seen calling from the top of the cage. A good rule of thumb is to start with around 10 gallons or equivalent space for a pair, and add 5-10 gallons per additional frog. This species does fine in groups, although females will eat each others eggs if they cannot lay them apart from each other

The author’s vitattus enclosure.

Creating a “slice of rainforest”

I have been housing my group of 5, consisting of 3 males and 2 females, in a planted vivarium with great success.  The idea is to recreate a slice of the rainforest where these frogs come from. Bromeliads are a great way to brighten up the cage, as well as provide water and egg laying/ tadpole rearing sites. Ferns, philodendrons, and begonias are also great choices that will thrive in a dart frog tank. You want to provide a lot of places and vegetation for your frogs to hide in to feel secure. Oak and Magnolia tree leaf litter is also a good way to add attractive ground cover. Vittatus tend to live close to rivers and streams, so adding a water feature would not be a bad idea.  However, I have not found it necessary for my own tank, so it is up to you which route you’d like to take. You will want to spray the cage every day, or however often it takes to make the humidity level peak at 80%, and then dissipate to around 60% throughout the day. A fogger such as Zoo Med’s Reptifogger will also aid in upping humidity, especially during the winter when so many of us are drying the air with heaters.

I feed my adult frogs small to medium crickets every other day to every three days when they are being put through a dry spell. When I start spraying more frequently again, they are fed every day, since they lay their eggs at this time and need the extra nutrients. Younger frogs are fed fruit flies daily until they can handle the small crickets. I supplement their diet by dusting insects twice a month with a Vitamin A supplement produced by Repashy. I have had highest fertility and healthy tadpoles with this schedule. One of my favorite attributes of these frogs is their ability to eat small to medium crickets with no problem.

If you are caring for your frogs correctly and have males and females, you will get eggs without question. I have learned to control when my frogs lay eggs to an extent, by increasing feeding and spraying. I cycle my group with 1-2 weeks of heavy spraying, during which they are fed daily, followed by 2 weeks of light spraying and less frequent feeding. During the “wet spell”, males are heard calling all day, but more frequently when the lights go out around 9-10. They lay eggs at this time. Calling is at a minimal when going through a “drought”. Coconut hides on top of 4.5” deli cup lids are placed throughout the floor of the tank, and used as egg laying sites. I check these daily during the wet spell, and pull eggs a couple days after discovering them to allow time for males to fertilize them. This is where having a male heavy group comes into play, as the more males you have, the greater chance of one finding the eggs and fertilizing them.

Egg and Tadpole Care

After pulling the eggs, I clean any dirt and feces off the lid, and place it into a larger deli cup with moist paper towels.I store the eggs on a shelf in my open closet, with low ambient light. The temperature stays around 70-73 degrees Fahrenheit. I have noticed that at these lower temperatures, the eggs and tadpoles take longer to morph out, but result in larger and healthier babies. You can see the tadpoles develop through the clear eggs, and eventually break out of the egg. Once they emerge, I put them individually in a 32 ounce tall deli cup filled half way with half Reverse Osmosis water (which locals can purchase at any of our retail stores!), and half “tadpole tea” which I make by boiling magnolia leaves in water until the water turns brown from the tanins. I also add a magnolia leaf placed diagonally out of the water for a resting place, as well as extra food for the tadpoles. I feed my tadpoles every 3-4 days with HBH tadpole pellets. Once they have all of their legs and half adult colors, I move them into a 6.75” diameter delicupplaced at a 30 degree angle with moss at the top and a little of the tadpoles water and the leaf in the bottom. At this time, the tadpole looks like a baby frog with a tail. They stop eating, and begin gaining nutrients exclusively from absorbing their tail. Usually within a week, they fully absorb their tail, and will be hopping around the Sphagnum moss. I then remove them and place them into a 9.75” diameter deli cup with moss as a substrate, and a pothos plant clipping and leaf litter. They begin eating melanogaster fruit flies in 4-7 days, and then can be kept as an adult.

One of the author’s tadpoles growing!

In Conclusion

Phyllobates vittatus is a great introduction into dart frog keeping. Their impressive colors and calls makes them fun to keep. They are forgiving for a dart frog, so they’re perfect for someone who is wanting to dive into dart frogs, but is unsure where to start. They also produce clutches every few weeks, so if you fail at keeping the eggs or tadpoles alive, you will have many chances to learn and get it right.  Unfortunately these frogs are extremely underrated. Not a ton of people are breeding them because they are not as bold as other members in their genus. However, they can be found at affordable prices, especially when available on our website.  Pick up a group and give them a try! You won’t be disappointed.

Caring For The Vietnamese Centipede – January 2014

By Anthony Neubauer

The Vietnamese Centipede is a large invertebrate found throughout the jungles and tropics of Asia, especially southeast Asia where they are mostly imported from. There are also populations in Hawaii, and likely in other tropical climates throughout the world. Reaching lengths up to 12”,they are an active creature, scurrying through the jungle floor’s leaf litter as they search for their next meal. In captivity, they often burrow, but with a thought out setup,  they can be seen cruising around through vegetation and rearranging their enclosure. The Vietnamese Centipede is a great animal for the careful hobbyist.

Please Note: Centipedes in general are not for the inexperienced.  Not only do they possess powerful paralyzing venom, they are extremely prone to biting, and are one of the fastest, most unpredictable bugs you can deal with. I strongly recommend a long pair of hemostats, as they easily climb up tongs with astonishing speed. Although you can find pictures of it on the internet, handling should in no way be attempted. Centipedes tend to “test bite” everything they walk on, so an envenomation is almost inevitable. Please be responsible.

You don’t want to be on the receiving end of a bite from those chompers!

Selecting an Enclosure

Centipedes are escape artists, so if not housed in a 100% secure enclosure, they will get out at some point. I will only house them in glass tanks that have a sliding top lid with a pin to prevent it from opening. I prefer the sides to be taller than the centipede is long to create some space between my hand. It should also be tall enough to allow a few inches of substrate for burrowing, as well as a drainage layer if you plan to create a living vivarium, which is the best way to go. Anything from 5-10 gallons is enough space for even the largest specimen. I have heard of people keeping them in plastic enclosures such as those sold as “Kritter Keeper”, however, I would not trust all of the holes and gaps. The rule is: If the centipede can squeeze it’s head through, it can get it’s entire body through. Trust me from experience, you do not want one of these exploring the room you sleep in!

Water and Humidity

Perhaps the number one reason centipedes do not survive in captivity is hydration. Even so called “desert” centipedes do not live completely dry. In fact, when it is dry, they are no where to be found on the surface because they burrow down to the more humid layers of dirt. Vietnamese Centipedes come from dense, humid jungles, so they need to be kept as such. There are three steps to properly hydrating them. The first is always offering a water bowl full of water. Second, use a substrate that holds moisture well and will not mold. Third is regularly spraying down the enclosure. This is where a vivarium becomes most practical as you are watering the plants regularly anyway. Follow these three steps, and your centipede will thrive.

Scolopendra subspinipes can be kept anywhere from room temp of 73*F, all the way up to 80*F. Keep in mind that at the higher end, they will act more natural, and be much quicker and aggressive. Many keepers will remove the heat source ahead of time if going into the enclosure is needed as this lets them cool down a bit and they tend to move a little slower. Still, do not let your guard down. Humidity is also harder to maintain at 80*F, so that should be accounted for.

Feeding is an easy thing with these guys, as they are not picky. Any live vertebrate or invertebrate will be accepted. Crickets, Cockroaches, and mealworms and superworms are commonly available food items, and are the healthiest for the animal. Pinkies and feeder lizards can be offered occasionally, but they are not designed to digest vertebrates as much, so they tend to make them obese and have a  shorter life span. Large Cockroaches are what makes up a majority of their diet in the wild, so are probably the most beneficial and nutritious. Keep in mind that they are messy eaters, tearing their food up and often leaving a pile of bits and pieces of their meal. This should be removed as soon as possible due to the rapid growth of mold that is sure to happen due to the high humidity they are kept in.

Inside the Tank

When setting up a centipede enclosure, a few things should be taken into consideration. First, a thick layer of substrate should be provided to allow burrowing. Burrowing leads to a sense of security, which in turn leads to a comfortable centipede that will not be afraid to explore it’s enclosure. The enclosure should be made dense with either live or fake plants. Pothos plants make great live terrarium plants, as they have low light requirements, love a humid environment, and will vine out and climb all surfaces of the tank if allowed. They will also produce heavy ground cover if nothing is provided for them to climb up. This is perfect for your centipede. Live sheet moss is another great way to add humidity as well as a special aesthetic appeal to the tank. Stacks of broken cork bark also allows multiple hiding places, while looking good at the sametime. Cork bark will not mold, so is perfect for the centipede’s environment. For substrate, I recommend Cypress, Eco Earth, or my personal favorite, Tree Fern made by Exo Terra. The latter two will hold up better in a naturalistic vivarium a lot better, but if going for a simple and clean enclosure, Cypress will produced great results if changed once a month.

A Note on Venom:

Although there are no reliable reports of death by Scolopendra subspinipes, bite victims describe the experience as the most pain they have ever felt, with reactions ranging from severe pain with swelling, to slight necrosis of the tissue, accompanied with nausea, and unbearable pain. If bitten, a hospital trip should be arranged immediately to be on the safer side. Different subspecies have different levels of venom, but all should be treated with the same care and respect that a potentially dangerous animal demands. Think twice before purchasing a centipede if you share the house with children. Bottom line: Be responsible!

Differences among subspecies:

Scolopendra subspinipes subspinipes is the most commonly seen subspecies in the US. They are large, with 8-9” being average, and up to a foot not being unheard of. Colors range from the standard yellow leg, to cherry leg and tiger leg populations. Scolopendra subspinipes “de haani”is an extremely colorful subspecies, with varying degrees of deep red legs and body. S. subspinipes mutilans is a smaller subspecies,attaining sizes of around 5-6”. Their headplate, as well as their last body segment and terminal legs are a vivid red, with a black body and yellow legs. They are among the smallest of the species, and interestingly enough, are communal. I successfully kept 3 adults together for over a year. This is the only subspecies that is recommended to be housed together.

The Vietnamese centipede is a truly impressive invertebrate. When setup correctly, they can be a unique display animal that is sure to captivate its observers. As long as they are given their space, and measures are taken to prevent an escape, they make a very cool pet. Keep them hydrated and humid, and you’re sure to have your centipede for a very long time. The centipede is gaining popularity as more and more people realize the interesting behaviors and colors that come along with these prehistoric bugs.

The Incorrigible Snake Mite – January 2014

By Nicole Smith

What is a mite?

Where do they come from?

Reptiles As Gifts – Do’s and Don’ts : December, 2013

By Jennifer Greene

The holidays are a fantastic, amazing time for families and friends to get together and exchange gifts.  Some people may be easy to buy gifts for, and others more difficult.  For manyreptile keepers, they have a wishlist of pets longer than they are tall!  While it may be tempting to buy a pet reptile for this person in your life, I have a word of advice for you.

It seems like it’d be a straightforward, easy gift – just wrap up the box the night before and give them the animal you know they’ve been wanting all year… It’s not at all that simple.  It’s a common piece of advice from animal shelters and rescues not to give puppies or kittens as presents during the holiday season, as it’s hard to be certain the recipient is really prepared for them.  That’s a mammal that can live in your home with you – imagine giving someone a pet that needs an entire habitat set up for them, that day, or else it runs the very great risk of getting sick and possibly even dying.

Resisting that smiling face can be hard when considering reptiles as pets for kids, but it’s incredibly important for the reptile‘s health that you are fully prepared for their arrival.

So, DON’T give a reptile as a gift unexpectedly.  No matter how much you think a family or friend may love a new pet gecko, ball python, or bearded dragon, that’s an entire life you’re giving to them without any warning.  Reptiles can become quite expensive over time, and it’s unfair to your friends and family to expect them to suddenly embrace a new expense without preparing for it.

That being said… That doesn’t mean you can’t help them prepare for possibly owning a new pet.  Books aren’t usually considered very exciting gifts, but they can be invaluable when it comes to learning about a new reptile pet.

So DO give books as gifts, especially to children.  Reading about reptiles not only helps them learn about caring for their new pet, but helps them practice their reading skills and learn how to find information on their own from valid sources.

Does the family or friend already have books, and you know for a fact they’re going to want thisreptile?  Consider buying a gift certificate for the amount of the animal instead, rather than risk shipping it during the hectic holiday shipping season, and let them pick out the exact animal they want.

If you know what species of reptile they’re getting, you can help by buying and wrapping needed supplies under the tree!  The most expensive part of any new reptile or amphibian is almost always setting them up, and this is where you can make the biggest impact on the gift recipient.  So DO remember to help out with needed supplies, which can be the most difficult part for a new reptile owner.

However, if you’re a member of the family, you know the recipient will be happy with their pet, and you absolutely must give them a live animal under the tree, there are a few tips for ensuring the reptile does well.

DO have the setup ready to go that day – if the animal arrived a few days or even weeks before Christmas, ensure that the correct setup is ready the day it arrives.  DO always order the setup before the animal.

DO make sure the animal stays warm while the presents are being unwrapped.  Packing them in their shipping container, nestled inside a larger box with a heat pack inside is a great way to ensure that your new pet stays war and safe until it’s unwrapped.

DO make sure no one shakes the box to see what’s inside!

DON’T wait until the last minute to order – shipping gets increasingly more hectic closer to Christmas, and winter weather is always unpredictable.  To have a setup shipped to you an dready for a new inhabitant in time before Christmas, the time to start shopping for it is now.  Average shipping for supplies is 7 to 10 business days, meaning that the latest you can wait to get just supplies is Tuesday, December 17th…and even then, with so many packages being shipped, there is always the risk of a delay.  Plan ahead and order early to ensure your gift arrives on time!

And of course, always, always, always DO your research before getting a new pet!  If you’re local, visit our stores for hands on interaction with potential new pets, as well as personal help from our staff.  If you’re not local, you can always visit us on Facebook, ask us questions on Twitter , and view our HUNDREDS of videos on YouTube!

Please DON’T make an impulse buy of a reptile pet this holiday season.

Reptiles, amphibians, and invertebrates are entirely dependent on you, the human caretaker, for all of their needs.  Please make sure that any reptile you give is not only wanted, but properly set up.

Beautiful Bumblebees: Care and Maintenance of Bumblebee Arrow Frogs – November 2013

by Bruno Magana – all photos by author

Dendrobates Leucomelas, or commonly referred to as simply “Leucs” are one of the more robust species of arrow frogs. These frogs are one of the most prolific and brilliantly colored species, and make excellent occupants in tropical vivariums. Stout in appearance, bumble bee arrow frogs are also one of the larger species of the genus Dendrobates and are marked with brilliant yellow and orange bands on a shiny black body.  Although one of the most common species of arrow frogs kept in captivity, anyone who has had the opportunity to keep them knows without a doubt how this frog has kept and maintained its popularity in the hobby. It is an undeniably exciting arrow frog whether you’re new to the hobby or an experienced enthusiast. Like all poison arrow frogs, bumble bee arrow frogs live in the tropical rainforests of South America.

Different localities of this species range throughout Venezuela, southeastern Colombia, Northern Brazil, and Guyana. The common or ‘standard’ variety of the bumble bee arrow frog has a near equal balance of black and yellow coloration, with large blotches of black breaking the the lighter coloration. Through decades of selectively breeding bloodlines of the standard Leucomelas, there tends to be a peculiar (but non detrimental) color variation in which an orange color brings just a little more definition to the yellow, sometimes to the extremes of being almost orange and black in color. Unlike the standard variation of bumble bee, the ‘Fine spotted’ variety has bright yellow covering the majority of its black ground color. They are characterized by the many small black spots that are scattered across the frog’s back. Although this variety is not as commonly available in the pet trade when compared to the standard variety, they are certainly not impossible to find! There is also another very attractive ‘Banded” variety of bumble bee arrow frog. Thickness and color of the bands varies dramatically within the bloodline, but no black spots are present within the yellow bands going across the frogs torso.

A bumblebee with a very attractive pattern

These frogs inhabit lush tropical rainforests at high elevations in fallen logs, plants, leaf litter, and other debris. Bumble bee arrow frogs are known for being ground dwellers, but for their short and stout build they are surprisingly good climbers. They are active throughout the day during spikes of high humidity, at which time they engage in social behaviour and forage for food. In the wild bumble bee arrow frogs have a long wet season that lasts during the warmertimes of year, but is then followed by a very brief cool and dry season. The males of this species can be quite vocal, its soft spoken trill could easily be mistaken for an exotic bird. Because this behaviour is limited to what seems to be scheduled times of day, it is easy to enjoy the pleasant sound without being disturbed. In fact, to many enthusiasts the male’s singing is truly music to one’s ears. The frog’s main intention with his song is to attract females. This courting behaviour happens during the wet times of year, when food and water is plentiful. Water is key to the rudimentary stages of their life cycle. Eggs can only survive in moist conditions and larvae (or tadpoles) start life aquatically in small shallow pockets of water. For these reasons, it is easily understood why adult bumble bee arrow frogs time their courting behaviour with seasonal conditions. During the the dry season, bumble bee arrow frogs will reduce overall activity and will usually hide under debris to protect their permeable skin from the dry air. Following pockets of moisture, the frogs will continue to eat small prey items throughout the dry season. Luckily many small insects have to follow the same pockets of humidity in this season, so the occasional meal is never far.

Having a general idea of the seasonal habits and behaviour of these frogs is an important factor to keep this animal happy in captivity. Although the bumble bee arrow frog does thrive in social groups, one must not go overboard with housing this frog with too many tank mates.

They do best if kept in female heavy groups of five or less individuals depending on the size of the enclosure you provide for them. It is possible to keep a steady group of younger frogs in a heavily planted ten gallon tank, but it is recommended to go big if you intend to breed bumble bee arrow frogs as adults. Keeping in mind that although this frog spends lots of time on the ground, they will also climb so it is best to make a vertically oriented vivarium to allow these frogs to indulge in their natural activities.

A glass tank measuring 18 x 18 x 24” can provide a suitable habitat for a group of three adults. Make sure to add some foliage to the vivarium, live or plastic, as this will reduce stress and encourage natural behaviour.

Like all amphibians, water is a necessity that encourages regular activity so be sure to mist the cage with water two to three times a day and always provide a small and shallow water source for bathing (they will rehydrate by soaking their bodies). The goal is for the humidity to spike around 60% during the day, and somewhere around 90% at night.

It is important to remember that humidity is not supposed to stay consistent so go easy on yourself when misting your enclosure. This routine can be made simple by using an automatic misting system to help schedule humidity spikes. Using distilled water will keep hard water stains from distorting the visibility of the glass enclosure and is much safer than using dechlorinated tap.

Bumble bee arrow frogs usually feed after it rains, so it is best to mimic their natural routine and feed them a good meal once a day after a nice shower. Bumble bee arrow frogs will eat a variety of available foods like small or pinhead crickets, fruit flies, and springtails. It is also recommended to use a fine powdered multivitamin and calcium with D3 to sprinkle on feeder insects (best used on crickets), this supplementation should ensure the frog is getting the necessary  nutrients from its diet. Supplementing the diet can be done once a week, but only use one supplement at a time to ensure the frogs can metabolize the meal properly

Bumble Bee Arrow frogs will readily breed year round if the right conditions are provided, but it is recommended to have an off season to mimic the dry season the would experience in the wild. This dry season happens between the months of January and February, but remember, the word “dry” is only relative considering the tropical climate. You still want levels of humidity to spike at around 50 % during the day and 60% at night for at least three to 6 weeks. Maintain regular feeding routines, even though your frogs may be hiding, they will still need to eat duringtimes of slow activity. After this cycle or dry season, regular routines can start again. Bumping up humidity will increase the frogs behaviour, and your frogs should soon engage in courting rituals. Males will call after humidity spikes during the day. If more than one male is present, they will often call after the other to establish territory and compete for any nearby females. Calling sites are usually near suitable egg laying sites. Once a female decides to enter a male’s territory, he will take immediate interest in showing the female the chosen site, usually done by taking short jumps towards an interested female. Nesting sites are are usually smooth surfaces with heavy moisture present. In captivity, these frogs will nest in plants such as fallen leaf litter or bromeliads, black film containers, and in petri dishes under coconut hides. Once the frogs have entered a nest site, spawning will take place usually out of sight, and may stay in the nest for a few days after.

Many people have relative success in raising frogs by simply keeping up with regular routine for the vivarium. Letting the adults handle business, it’s possible to one day realize there are a couple of new additions to your arrow frog vivarium. Of course, letting this happen creates a big range of possibilities that you as a keeper have no control over. For example, two new froglets could have possibly have been six if the eggs were removed from the cage and incubated artificially in a moist petri dish. Having that control will increase the success rates of rearing arrow frog larvae. and raising young metamorphs.  Of course there is a lot of work involved in maintaining water quality, temperatures, and food for tadpoles on a daily basis – being involved with this amazing process is not only rewarding for the species, but also rewarding to you as the keeper. Whether your goal is to produce a number of frogs, or simply to have a little piece of paradise in your room, the bumble bee arrow frog is a wonderful species to work with for enthusiasts of all levels of experience.

Inside the Reptile Industry: Farming – April 2014

By Jennifer Greene and Loren Leigh

A young Argus monitor

A baby Mississippi Map Turtle

Baby Savannah Monitor

Food for thought.