What A Fishy Smile

@emifishwaffle pointed out that orange-fronted conures are also called half-moon conures. So I give you Pokemon Sun Conure and Pokemon Half-Moon Conure. Bird images from BirdChannel.com. 

Exciting news! @liveaquaria has updated the Betta fish tank size guidance on their website! They raised the suggested minimum for males from 0.25 to 5 gal, and for females from 1 to 5 gal. I notified them about the petition for @petco to raise their recommended min Betta tank size from 0.25 to 3 gal. LiveAquaria was receptive and responsive – in fact, their updated guidance raises the bar among industry leaders! While all of these retailers can continue to sell smaller tanks, some are giving their customers information that helps them make better choices. It is great to see a leader like LiveAquaria recognize the demand for proper Betta care information. This is a small step in the right direction! Will other retailers keep up? 😃

(Find on Instagram)

The madams love running through fields of clover!

If you want to build rock towers, get your own rocks and build them at home. That’s perfectly fine. But rocks provide vital habitat for wildlife, especially in stream bed; moving and stacking them leaves them without shelter, crushes them, exposes their eggs, and leads to soil erosion and bank destruction. Leave them where they are.

This is a Hellbender salamander. Hellbenders are the third largest aquatic amphibian in the world, and the largest amphibian in the US. They are extremely endangered, in huge part because people are moving rocks in what little habitat they have left to them. These big boys can live for decades and once they choose a rock to live under, that’s it, that’s where they live, and they do not do well relocating. Studies have found that if their rock is moved or even disturbed, the hellbender will not return to it- even if you can replace the rock how you think you found it. Moving rocks, even just briefly, runs the risk of crushing them, their young, their eggs, or depleting the places where their food sources hide (they eat mostly crawfish and small fish that hide among rocks), either from you moving the rock or from other rocks falling in the absence of the rock you moved. Even if it doesn’t immediately kill them, it can permanently displace and ultimately cause the death of one.

These are not the only creatures that suffer from habitat being destroyed, they are just one I happen to know the face, name, and situation of. Please, please, please. It’s not worth the photo. It’s just not. Leave nature in place where it belongs, leave no trace. Protect those that have no defense against you other than your choice to be kind to them.

BIRDS: EXPOSED

Face to face with a 90 year old turtle