Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Hercules

A few months ago a student brought a frog to the office and said he "found" it in his unit. I was suspect (it's my nature) that it just "appeared" out of nowhere. We have a no pet policy and we often "find" things that don't belong.
Not wanting to flush the little guy I decided to take him home. I went and bought an aquarium and some things to go in it and named the little dude "Hercules". I conducted what I considered to be a fairly extensive search in pet stores, books, on the internet and consulting colleagues in the animal health department to determine what kind of a frog he was. At the time I was unable to determine what species of frog he was - partly because he was albino and so it made it difficult to identify any markings on him.
He was a great froggy pet. He lived in our kitchen and one he came out of semi hibernation he was very interested in everything happening in his froggy world and would greet me every morning in his water dish. I liked him.
This week he went to the great lily pad in the sky. He was fine one afternoon when I filled his water dish ( I was filling it often because it was quite warm in our house). I commented to my spousal unit to check out his pose because he was laying with his legs out in the dish with his head and one hand on the side and I thought it was cute. The very next day he was gone. I am sad he has left us. As I was looking for a photo (I never took one of him) I found this picture in the very first google search I did. He was a Northern Leopard Frog [Rana pipiens]. I think its weird that I looked and looked to see what kind of frog he was when I took him home and was unsuccessful and then today I found him right away.
RIP little Hercules.

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