Saying Some Goodbyes

Yesterday I sent off a gecko to Tennessee, and I'm a bit sad about it. I need the money and I desperately need to downsize, hence the sale I'm having... but it's always hard to sell a baby you've raised. This was a special little guy - he looked just like his daddy who is my favorite gecko. He went to a very nice home though where I know he will be loved and cared for, and made it there safely thank God.

However, I also parted with another member of my animal "family", one who I have had for over 6 years. This loss was much harder. His name is Oz, and he's a Midas cichlid. When I first bought him he was nearly dead as a result of bullying from larger tankmates at Petsmart, and he was barely an inch long. As time passed, he upgraded from a 10 gallon to a 29, to a 55. I even moved him from Washington state to Kansas! Currently he is at least 11 inches long, about 7 inches "tall", and about 2-3 inches wide. In other words, he had long outgrown his 55 gallon.

I moved to my own place in November, and didn't bring him with me - it would have just been too much of a huge hassle to move him + the tank. He stayed in my parent's basement. I have no room here for a tank larger than a 55, and my parents were unwilling to let me upgrade at their house either. Oz was also extremely bored - I used to have my bedroom in the basement so he had interaction with me all the time, but my parents hardly ever go down there. So he was self-harming out of boredom, and I knew something had to be done.

The problem was that Oz is extremely aggressive towards other fish - he killed the only two tankmates I've ever tried with him and cleaning his tank was always like a shark diving adventure. So he needed a very special home and owner. I started posting ads on craiglist early in the year and never found anyone who had a setup that would be appropriate. Then several days ago I was contacted by a guy, Brandon, who offered to add him into his 150 gallon tank. The tank did have other fish such as an 11" pacu and 8" oscar, plus some varied African cichids. I was a bit concerned about the other fish, so we just decided to try it on a trial basis.

Last evening I brought Oz over and we introduced him to the tank. Oz was pretty stressed from the trip so we weren't able to get a good feel for how he was going to be. He hid behind the rocks the Africans live in (on the left side of the tank), and apparently slept there all night. This morning Brandon texted me to update me - he said that Oz was exploring the whole tank and being trailed by several of the smaller fish without minding at all. He even fed alongside them without problems, which surprised me (but I was also glad to hear he was willing to eat already, he must be settling in quickly). When he encountered the pacu he took a bite at him and the pacu fled to the right side of the tank where it usually hangs out. The oscar and Oz then had a 20 second mouth fight which naturally Oz won, and the oscar wandered back over the right as well.

I'm really hoping Oz doesn't start bullying the larger fish. He seems to have decided that the left side of the tank is his territory, which is good since the pacu and oscar already hang out on the right. I'm hoping that this becomes permanent and that territory squabbles are few and far between. However, I may be hoping for too much because Oz may decide the whole tank is his and start bullying that oscar like crazy. Fingers crossed? I still have his 55 up and running and will for another week or two, just in case... but I hope and pray this works out. It would just be an ideal situation for him. In fact, in an email today from Brandon, he said:

"The kids are having fun playing follow the leader with Oz. Our 22-month-old son belly laughs when Oz swims up close to see him. He is quite the character! :)"

I was so glad to hear that. Oz and I always used to play a game where I'd run from one side of the tank to the other and back and he'd swim alongside, trying to beat me. Brandon has 3 children under the age of 5 and I was hoping they'd play the same game - sounds like they are already! He's certainly going to get a lot of interaction at this house, which is wonderful. (Brandon also said I could come visit him whenever I wanted which I really appreciated, and I probably will at some point once he's settled in.)

I know a lot of you may be thinking I'm nuts for being emotionally attached to a fish, but he wasn't "just a fish". Hopefully from what I've said you can get some of an idea of how much personality he has. He is the most dog-like fish I've ever met, and I'll miss him a lot. I watched him grow and change his coloration and shape into a most impressive, beautiful fish. I wish I'd taken more recent pics, but here are some from a few years back, when he still fit in his 55:




Angry boy! Look at that flare!


And his 55, at its peak before he started "redecorating":




Cross your fingers for me that this new home works out for him. I don't know what I'll do if it doesn't. Goodbye Oz, and be good please!! I already miss you but you'll be happier there.



I may potentially have a 55 open now. (tiny cheer?) I'm thinking Diamondback Terrapin... Blue Tongue Skink... or upgrading my 29 community to the 55. No idea yet. Just some ideas rolling around in my head in case this works out.

Bat Woman?

Tonight turned into one of those nights where you never know what's gonna happen (as is my life regarding wildlife, usually). My parents and I were playing cards and they got a call from someone at our church - there was a bat in the building! We've had bat sightings for several months now and I've been worried about the poor thing (assuming it was the same one) as it wouldn't be able to hibernate properly with the fluctuating temps. In any case, we got called because I had mentioned wanting to catch and release it if it was ever in a "catch-able" place. So we finished our game, I gathered some gear, and it was off for the great bat hunt!

We arrived to the following:

So I put on some leather gloves and grabbed a towel - the bat was sleepy and weak so I considered this as the best and least stressful approach (I'd brought a bucket and a pillowcase as well). I also wanted to be able to handle him in order to release him onto a tree later as it would have been very difficult, if not impossible, for this bat to take off from the ground. Climbed a stepladder, and here's me preparing for the capture:

I easily caught him and safely and properly restrained him in the towel. There just happened to be an entire troop of Boy Scouts finishing their meeting at the same time, so of course I was mobbed and we had a few minutes of "Show and Tell". They had a lot of questions but I was happy to answer them because I think bats are wonderful. Of course some were a bit wary but I explained that this species is awesome because of how many bugs they eat (including the bugs that annoy humans like mosquitos)! Here's a photo of me doing a little explaining (note the Scout over my shoulder shooting a video on his phone - cell phones were out everywhere it was hilarious), excuse the goofy expression on my face, I was talking:

And here is the very unhappy bat himself. He didn't try to bite (woulda if he coulda, however - I didn't give him the chance) but he was emitting distress calls and I tried to limit his time restrained to only a few minutes.

I then released him outside - he had a hard time of it, but after several tries I got him latched onto a big tree which he climbed, so I am hopeful that he will make it.

After several hours of research I was able to finally identify the bat as a Big Brown Bat, Eptesicus fuscus. The problem was that the photos my mom took were not quite clear enough and I couldn't remember what the tragus (part of the ear) looked like well enough to ID that way - this species is extremely similar to the Little Brown Bat, also known as the Little Brown Myotis (Myotis lucifugus). I'm proud of myself, as I finally identified it by dentition. :D Found some photos of skulls of both species, did comparisons, and the bottom teeth in that last photo are in sharp enough focus that I was able to make a for-sure ID.

In my research I came across some interesting information about this particular species. For example - "Males usually live alone; females gather in maternity colonies in the spring and summer to give birth and raise their young. A maternity colony may include 20 - 75 adults and their offspring. Females in the eastern United States usually give birth to twins; those in the West usually have a single pup each year. Females may return to the same colony year after year." (Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History) What especially interests me is the difference in offspring number regarding geographic location. What's up with that? Increased predation/other dangers for young bats in the east? WNS? (Keep reading for info on that - it's moving west slowly but surely). Who knows!

And for those who don't know much about bats, I must bring up the subject of White-nose Syndrome, something that is killing our bats and we know little to nothing about. It is wiping out entire colonies and we don't even know for sure how it is spread, much less have any idea how to treat it. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has a good page on it with current news and make sure to click on "Learn more about white-nose syndrome". A sobering statistic from that page says that since this was first discovered in February of 2006, "More than a million hibernating bats have died since then, making WNS the worst wildlife health crisis in memory." It's something to be aware of, as bats are a very important part of our ecosystem and without them... well... I don't even want to go there! There's enough mosquitos in Kansas already.

Signing off for now!
~ Bat Woman

An Important Lesson Learned...

Last night my main email acccount was hacked. I was actively using it and emailing while on my laptop and visiting my parents.... several hours later after I was back at home I fired the laptop back up and viola, I am magically signed out. This was the first sign of something wrong, since I have my email set to save my username and password, and am always signed in when I click on it. Next sign? My password was "incorrect". And the answer to my secret question was also "incorrect". I did not have a different working email (hadn't updated this in years) to send a password reset request to. I tried too many times to sign in with my "incorrect" password and was locked out of the account (which usually lasts 24 hours, in which much damage could have been done).

*CUE TOTAL FREAKOUT*

I had to submit a ticket to the company, explaining in as much detail as possible what my email account contained - recent emails, folder names, contact details, etc. Thankfully I was able to remember enough that my ownership of the account was validated by the next afternoon and I was sent a password reset link to a different email address. Now everything is back to normal, and it looks like no harm has been done. I've changed my account settings (in all accounts I could think of) so that they are *MUCH* more secure (changed security questions, added my phone number and alternate emails for password resets)... but I've gone even further than that.

A friend on a forum mentioned a program called KeePass, a program you can download (or even just put it on a USB stick to use portably without installing). To quote the website, "KeePass is a free open source password manager, which helps you to manage your passwords in a secure way. You can put all your passwords in one database, which is locked with one master key or a key file. So you only have to remember one single master password or select the key file to unlock the whole database. The databases are encrypted using the best and most secure encryption algorithms currently known."

Basically, you only have to remember one master password to get into the program, and then the program allows you to generate random, extremely strong passwords (we're talking symbols, numbers, caps/lowercase, 20 character length, etc - all which can be altered to your preferences) for anything you need a password for. I decided to install the program on my laptop and spend several hours this evening using it to change all my passwords - emails, blogs, my website, paypal, bank account, even games I play. I realized how often I use the same or very similar passwords (and don't we all?) and how easy it would be to get into multiple accounts if someone were to just figure out one of those passwords.

I could have been in for a catastrophe if I had not got my account back - I would have lost all my contacts, multiple important emails including correspondence regarding gecko sales - and no one would have known why I dropped off the planet! My email address may have even been used to generate malicious spam. And if they'd gained access to my financial accounts, well, we all know how devastating it could have gotten then. I learned my lesson! And I'm posting this entry so that you can learn from my mistakes instead of your own (even one that could lead to full-on identity theft). At the very least go and change your passwords often, and try to make them unrelated and include both letters and numbers. But I *strongly* encourage checking out KeePass for yourself. The website has a list of its features and I think you'll be impressed. Even when installed on your computer, the program leaves no registry keys or other evidence and if, God forbid, someone stole your computer, they still wouldn't have your passwords without that master password.

Bottom line: Protect your websites, your financial accounts, your email, and as a result - yourself!

OMG, I'm launching the site...

Believe it or not, after months and months of work, I think I've finally got the site close enough to finished for the official launch! I'll probably never be fully satisfied, so I might as well go for it. If I don't quit now, my eyes are going to permanently cross from staring at walls of codes for hours on end! (Yes, I built/typed the entire thing myself, from scratch... ugh. We'll see if I ever convince myself to do that again!)

I've still got a few photos to add of geckos who wouldn't fire for me during the photo shoots, etc, but most everybody is there. I can't believe how many geckos I'm selling though, that will be hard. I'm selling something like 14 geckos which is about half my collection. But for those of you who don't know, I have some severe health problems that limit me significantly and in recent months I've come to the conclusion that I simply must cut back. I'm only holding onto the geckos I plan to breed, some holdbacks, and a couple special ones. :)

I hope and pray my geckos go to wonderful homes, and I will be very picky about where some of them go. They have been very special animals and I want them to be spoiled rotten! Thanks to all who are supporting the launch of the site, and if you're in the market, I hope you find an animal you like.

Julie