Creepy Pets Redux

Whether due to budget, space, or the fact that we never seem to stay in one place for very long, the pets we have gotten our children have usually swung to the less than permanent side of the spectrum. However, just because we want a cheap replaceable pet doesn't mean I am going to settle for a mind numbingly boring one like a goldfish.

For those of you who have followed our blog for a while, you may remember a post about our first "creepy pet," a hermit crab named Crabby. For the record, we've never claimed that our son had the naming skills of someone like Carolus Linnaeus. Now that we live in a tiny Japanese apartment our options are again limited by all the previous criteria as well as the fact that we must now also factor in what constitutes a "pet" according to the rules and regulations of our apartment building. So this weekend when we were out shopping on Children's Day we came across a beetle starter kit which included the tank, soil, feeding tray, and one large and very shiny Rhinoceros Beetle. Needless to say, he came home with us.

Male Rhinoceros Beetle in nature.

 Keeping beetles as pets is very popular in Japan with almost every department store or 100 yen store selling some sort of bug hunting or keeping paraphernalia. In many ways it borders on the obsessive. Most of the time people simply go out and dig up their own grubs, which are quite easily found as Laura can attest to finding several large larvae the other day while she was weeding the local "sandbox."

On the way back home we encouraged Theo to come up with a name for his new pet by listing things in no particular order that were black. Thusly we have a beetle name "Coal." One bonus to keeping these specific types of beetles that unlike his crab, this particular pet can not pinch, bite or sting and so is virtually harmless which is I'm sure one of the reasons leading to it's popularity as a pet here in Asia. 

Our newest acquisition.

I am sure that with our imminent move to a larger space our menagerie will expand and we will keep you posted in regards to every new addition.

Creepy Pets

Ever since I was a kid I have loved animals. This love has never been limited to the charismatic cute and fuzzies of the world either. From my earliest years I have been bottling and caging all sorts of insects and vermin and trying to convince those around me that they are actually fascinating and beautiful and not just downright creepy. My menagerie has included, but not been limited to, centipedes, mice, beetles, countless hairy or hairless rats, spiders, a possum, snakes, and water snails. If you have ever read the book My Family and Other Animals you can better imagine what kind of child I was. The latest, and surprisingly only, creature in our house at the moment is a hermit crab.

 Personally, I think hermit crabs are a pretty mundane and obvious choice of pet for a three year old, but it seems that most people who come over are appalled when they see this spidery crustacean clinging to its log in the tank in Theo's bedroom. Since it is behind glass, mostly inside a shell, and has claws it can't be "loved" to death by Theo. I'll admit that it isn't the most friendly of all pets, since the first and last time Theo held the crab it pinched his palm leaving a huge blood blister, but it is interesting. It changes shells occasionally, and if you present it with a new shell it will always try it on for size at least once. It creeps around the cage digging, climbing, and scooping food into its mandibles with its claw. That being said, I don't think anyone in our household is too terribly attached to it. We always glance in and observe its little movements and behaviours but I don't think anyone would be shocked if one morning we noticed it dead. We expect it actually, especially when it digs a little hole in the sand and refuses to eat, drink, or move around for days. It has been in one of these hermit moods for the past week and this morning Dustin was only a little surprised to see what appeared to be the shrivelled dead crab fallen out of its shell. On closer inspection it was actually its moulted carapace. This is why I have always had an attraction for these kinds of pets. If cats outgrew their skins, crawled out of them, and then proceeded to eat them, I might just be tempted to get one. Moulting time is very stressful on animals (that is how my tarantula died, much to the delight of almost everyone I knew at the time) and so I am curious if the crab will pull through this one. If so, we will need to start thinking of who to pawn the thing off on when we leave. Any takers?