Huntsman Spider

I  haven't posted something in what has almost been 2 1/2 years (apart from tigers)! I've been looking back at some of the things that I've written, a lot of them being quite primitive so I thought I'd just give an update on huntsmans. For this I'm going to give you a personal experience:

Not long before my birthday of 2013 (12th birthday) I decided I really wanted a pet huntsman. My dad said he would look around while he was at my auntie and uncle's farm cutting wood for our fire at home. One of the times he said that he'd spotted a large one on a fallen tree. Of course when I heard that I insisted that we had to go and try to find him. So, for my party that year, me and two friends went to the farm with dad and ended up, before reaching the tree where the huntsman was last seen, collecting, if I remember correctly, five small skinks and three geckos (marbled geckos from what I remember). After searching for a while on the tree, out of the corner of my eye I saw the huntsman and we frantically managed to retrieve it. 

We used my small glass lizard enclosure (as we only keep wild skinks and geckos for a couple of months at the most it was free) to house, what was now called Gery (said Jerry). After having "him" for a few months I took it into my year 6 class for the day and it was then I noticed that it was particularly bigger, in the abdomen, than before. Sure enough, after a week or two I saw a white, silky casing of what I knew to be an egg-sack. So, from then on, she was known as Geryette (Jerry-ett).

I did some research and found that they could have up to 200 babies! And when they hatched a month and a half later it definitely seemed like it. After worrying about them escaping we found that they stuck to their mother very closely, mostly hanging on to her and she was always inside a little hollowed out stump we gave her. Unfortunately we had to let her and her babies go and their behaviour towards their mother made it much easier to get them all out together. 

I hope when people read this they will enjoy this and I'm going to try my best to start putting things up again.

Oh and I did manage to give myself the courage to pick her up at one stage, although I did make sure I was wearing gloves. 

TIGERS!

Tigers, I think are the most beautiful big cats in the world. They have beautiful black or brown stripes with an orange or white body. Unfortunately all tigers are endangered or critically endangered. please help in anyway you can!
some tigers include the Sumatran, Bengal and the Corbett's or indochinese tiger.

GONE BUT NOT FORGOTTEN (THYLACINE)

On Monday 7 September 1936 the last captive Thylacine died. All that remains of this magnificent animal is some grainy movie footage taken at Hobart Zoo of it roaming around in a chicken wire fence. There are no known photographs of a Thylacine alive in the wild. Isn't a pity that people won't be able to see this creatures amazing jaw, which could open to 120 degrees, the wolf like head, it's stiff, heavy kangaroo-like tail, or it's tiger-like stripes.
       A dramatic reduction in the number of Thylacines must have been obvious by the middle 1850s.  Even the famous naturalist John Gould, in his book The Mammals of Australia,1845-1863, predicted the end of the Thylacine when he wrote:
       When the comparatively small island of Tasmania becomes more densely populated, and it's primitive forests are intersected with roads from the eastern to the western coast, the numbers of this single animal will diminish, extermination will have it's full sway, and it will then, like the wolf in England and Scotland, be recorded as an animal of the past.

AN EXTRACT OF 30 AMAZING AUSTRALIAN ANIMALS, #28 GONE BUT NOT FORGOTTEN (THYLACINE).

WRITTEN BY CHRISTOPHER CHENG 

ILLUSTRATED BY GREGORY ROGERS

My move to South Australia

At the start of 2011 I moved to South Australia. We live in a rental house in Victor Harbor. It took us 12 hours to get from my old house to my new one (I lived in Victoria). My dad drove here in a truck that he had hired to carry all our stuff from our old house. My mum was driving our old BMW with me, my sister our cat and our chicken which was in a basket. Not long after we moved here we bought two tiny chickens. We got them because we came over with one then we got one from our cousins. The dog from next door killed the one we got off our cousins so our other chicken was lonely. We got our little chickens from the "Wet 'n' Wild" pet shop. I had my birthday a few weeks ago and it was great! I got heaps of money and presents.

Olive Baboons

Olive Baboons don't have colourful faces like most people think, but the do have red bottoms. Mandrills are the ones that have colourful faces. Mother baboons carry their babies on their backs. Male baboons fight. The baboons can be injured or the fight can be fatal. Baboons live in big groups.

Black-rock skink

Black-rock skinks can grow to about 20cm long. I kept one for a couple of weeks as a pet. He only bit be twice and it hurt! My black-rock skinks name was Clawrie. he loved the flowers in my back garden. You can find them near rocks or wood but they're very rare. They have a black body but I have forgotten what the colour of their belly is.

parrot crossbill

Parrot crossbills can get to about 16-18 cm. The juveniles bill is less pronounced and hardly separable from other juvenile crossbills. Parrot crossbills moult between June and November. It's voice tends to be lower, slower and slightly better enunciated than the crossbill. There voice is a 'quop, quop' sound. They are found in pine and spruce forests, and in Britain also in the remains of the ancient caledonian forest of the Scottish highlands. Parrot crossbills feed on seeds of conifer trees, especially Scots pine, and also spruce and larch. Some invertebrates are also eaten when nesting.

THIS INFORMATION IS FROM THE RSPB HANDBOOK OF BRITISH BIRDS BY PETER HOLDEN AND TIM CLEEVES

ECHIDNA

Echidnas are only found in Australia. Just like the platypus the echidna is called a monatreme witch means they are mammals that lay eggs. Recently my mum's cousin gave me an echidna spike that he found 10 years ago.

chickens

Chickens are one of the most common birds in the world. In 2003 They had a population of 24 billion chickens!

MICE

Mice are considered pests just like rats. Lucky I have a cat because we had a mouse problem and the cat ate the mouse. The mouse we had chewed on my mums favourite skirt!