Late Night Gift - Part 2 & Why I Like Living Things in my Office

So, it happened again. Around 11 pm, the cats brought me a gift — both boys this time.

Caster & Pollux when they were young, cute, and sleepy ~ my image.

If Houdini was a Snake - He’d be a Prairie Black-headed snake.

They must have felt bad that the first gift snake had done a Houdini, right?

This time I made sure there would be no escape. I took everything out of the enclosure that he could climb and tapped the edges with blue painter’s tape. The next morning he was still there!

The enclosure I prepped is pretty bare, but it has water and mealworms. It isn’t the exact same snake (the first was likely female and pregnant); this one is smaller.

It burrows through the dirt like a sandworm from Dune and spends the day hidden. Sometimes, in the morning, I’ll see a tail sticking out, but unless I take everything out of the enclosure and tip it until he appears, I never know if he’s survived the night.

Last night I was working late and looked over, and there he was hunting! We even had a moment where he seemed curious about the strange creature on the other side of the glass.

No— I’m not going to keep him, but I am going to see if I can get him just a bit more comfortable with me so I can take some good pics.

Also, not much is known about this species, and although captivity isn't the best method of learning, it’s all I’ve got right now.

Writing is lonely

Last summer, my desk was full of living things - scorpions, five different caterpillar species, and a Phidippus johnsoni Jumping spider. The scorpions didn’t make it through the fall — the caterpillars either pupated, died from poison (I was crushed - I got them a big parsley plant, not realizing it was sprayed with a neurotoxin), or from predation (preditory wasps - too cool). 

The Johnsonii was at the end of her life. She built a nest just days after I found her, took a week to molt, losing her coloration. Then she lost her ability to climb the glass walls of her enclosure. A few days before she died, I watched her hunt, trapping a small fly in a crevis which she blocked with her body. Trapping it in the small confined crevice. Clever girl!

After she was gone, I realized how much I missed them all. I love my plants, but she and I hung out while I worked, which was nice.

I dream of getting something permanent - maybe a Betta and some friends. But we are so far from pet stores; I worry about them surviving the ride home. Until then, I’ll bring some of the outdoors inside and learn more about the amazing creatures on the edge of the Chihuahuan Desert.

More pics later—

~ Tess