Banana Box Frog Rescue

[Catherine]

There is a real problem with frogs hitching a ride with bananas and other produce.  These poor frogs didn't know the fruit they were hiding on was about to be picked. They are totally vulnerable and it often ends badly for them. Frogs are so fragile and vulnerable. I am glad to hear that there are some places where people are trying to save them.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-10/th...on=science


I am glad they are inspecting fruit before shipping to remove hitchhiking wildlife. It would be a terrifying experience for a little creature. It would have no idea what is happening. Why should it suffer because we feel this need to ship stuff all over the planet.

I am currently raising a very tiny lizard that probably was shipped on a tropical plant. It was less than an inch long when it was found on the floor. I have it in a tiny little container and I feed it very tiny insects. After a month it has doubled in size. It is now a tiny lizard. It is so cute, but how many of these little lizards are never found in time or found by someone who knows how to feed them.

[Tobi]

Yes this is sad and preventable if the food was inspected first. Unfortunately I think the procedure is (or used to be) to 'gas' bananas, to kill off anything which had hitched a ride.

Once many years ago (90s sometime) I went into the co-op near where my mother lived to get groceries. I saw a fairly large black and yellow spider run among the bananas! I went immediately to tell the store manager, and he wasn't the slightest bit interested! I told him he should call the RSPCA, as that spider could have been venomous. He said he would, but was so laid back about it.
I called them myself when I got back to my mother's house. They didn't sound very interested either! But of course, were polite.
I was quite shocked at everyone's response! And if the spider was ever found, how was it treated? I can't know.

I am glad to hear that poor tiny lizard was rescued, and has come to live at your place Catherine! Someone cared somewhere along the line there.

[Catherine]

They do gas bananas and all the frogs die. That is why the Frog Rescue wants to get in there and save them.
They don't worry about spiders like that because they figure the winter will kill them. It would never occur to them that the spider could be rescued.

We have opossums in Toronto because they have hitched rides on trucks. They seem to have established themselves and are here to stay.

The little lizard is almost an inch long now. I still have him at the reptile centre because we have the right food supply there for something that small. When he is big enough he can live in one of my tanks. That may be many months from now. He is eating very well, but he has a lot of growing to do.
Who knows how far he traveled. It might even be his egg that traveled. I will get a picture when he is big enough to see.
I do think he is going to make it.