Opossum

It’s 12:45 amмаси и столове in Dallas, Texas right now…

I just took our kitchen garbage out to the trash can and noticed one of our neighborhood stray dogs laying in the middle of the street.

As I focused in and started approaching, I noticed that it was sitting next to another animal, also in the middle of the street…I thought it could have been a run over cat or something like that…

…As I came upon the dog, I took a look at what kind of animal was laying there and lo and behold, it was the opossum I’ve been noticing walking through the neighborhood some nights, playing dead – completely still, eyes open and all.

The dog, who’s usually quite skiddish when you come near him, wanted to hold his ground even though I was very close and clapping him away to go home.  He even growled at me.

I’m sure he was deciding whether he wanted to eat his catch or play with it for a while before eating it, but he finally took off down the way to his house – I don’t know what’s up with his owners.

Anyway, now I’m outside in my pajamas waiting on our street corner for this opossum to “wake” back up and get off the road to disappear into the night again.

I’m telling you, I had to wait

Playing Opossum in Dallas: Saving Our Wildlife is a post from: Exotic Animal Lover

Catopoly Game

If you’re a cat owner, no doubt you are always on the lookout for great pet cat supplies. Right?

I know it – If you’re anything like me, I’m constantly checking to see if I can’t find a great deal on pet food, cute clothes, games that involve my pets or treats!

What I did find for you cat lovers out there is the neatest cat furniture at Outdora.com in their pet cat supplies section.

Cat Bed from Outdora

Check out one of their adorable beds (left)…too cute – and you could hide some of their toys in the drawer below or treats…

What I didn’t expect to find there, though, were cat safety kits for first aid. Great idea…We often don’t think about how important our pet’s safety is or if you’re prepared for an emergency or disaster with your pet.

Also, something unique I found in their pet cat supplies that I have never seen before were cat memorials. Our pets are so very important to us, don’t you want to make a statement about remembering them? I know our pets are very important members of our family and we honor them with dignity and love…

Cat House

We were at a friend’s house the other day and noticed a piece of furniture with a door in it that their cat kept going in and out of. It matched all of their furnishings in their home and we thought it was just the neatest thing! It is called a cat house.

Now, I’ve seen these before, but they were all “open air”. This one was perfect for their cat that thinks it’s royalty to go into privately and have a siesta or get some “quiet time”! LOL   This site has these sorts of cat houses too.

Cat Tunnel

Whether you’re looking for cat furniture, cat toys, or anything else “cat”, Outdora is a great place to check out that you may not have even thought of.

Plus, ground shipping is free with every order from their website! That’s awesome!

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I hope you enjoyed this Pet Cat post on Exotic Animal Lover! Until next time…

Live Exotically,

Kimberly Edwards

P.S. Exotic Animal Lover Updates are 1 click away!

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Looking for Pet Cat Supplies? is a post from: Exotic Animal Lover

American Cockroach

They’re called water bugs or Palmetto bugs, but they’re actually American cockroaches and they’re huge.

They can fly, they run fast and will even come back to life on you after they’ve been smashed.

When we lived in Louisiana, they were a real problem especially when it rained or got cold as they’d find any tiny hole to get into your home. We actually set mouse traps for them and they worked!

They’re so large, you can hear them shuffling around in cupboards and on tile floors, even though we keep everything really spic and span.

Tonight, we just got rid of our 4th one this week that somehow found a way into our home here in Dallas.

Tough to catch, really smart and super fast, it’s not easy to pick one up to put back outside. They have been clocked at 3.4 mph – that’s equivalent to a human running 205 mpg (50 body lengths per second)!

My husband tried to corale #4 into a brown shopping bag, but it was too smart for all of that…It took a good 3-4 minutes trying to convince it to even step foot on the bag. Then, there was a mad dash to the door because it crawled out of the bag and almost up his arm!

Creepy crawlers that are so big, you can’t help but see them run across the floor or on the wall out of the corner of your eye.

Instead of being the typical roach black, they’re rusty in color! Yikes!

Here’s a photo I found of a bunch of them, except the ones we get down South are much bigger!

I guess I’m just not much of a bug person!

Scientific Classification:
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Insecta
Order: Blattaria
Family: Blattidae
Genus: Periplaneta
Species: P. americana

Conservation Status: This is not a threatened animal species. In fact, it is joked about that they’d be the only animal to survive a nuclear bomb.

American cockroaches are actually found all over the world due to global shipping and travel.

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I hope you enjoyed this Insect Information on Exotic Animal Lover! Until next time…

Live Exotically,

Kimberly Edwards

P.S. For more information on the American Cockroach, check out this really informative book:

American Cockroach Catherine Chalmers’s second Aperture monograph invites us to meditate on the pleasures and terrors of the common domestic pest, Periplaneta americana, also known as the American cockroach. In three different series of photographs, “Infestations,” “Imposters,” and “Executions,” Chalmers challenges us to reconsider how we distinguish between creepy infestation and acceptable nature. With a slight B-movie quality, the images push us to think carefully about the ways in which we determine some creatures to be lovable and others best squashed under a shoe.

Technorati Tags: water bugs, cockroaches, Texas bugs, Texas insects, Texas cockroaches, roaches, big roaches, Palmetto bugs, American cockroach

Cockroaches 5 Inches Long in Texas is a post from: Exotic Animal Lover

Exotic Animal Newsflash:

A Kentucky man, Kenny Mahoney, has a motion sensor hunting camera in his backyard, which often picks up images of rabbits, turkeys and deer.

What he found was an unidentified mysterious animal (UMA) on the photo raiding his garden. Check out this video:

Skeptical that it could be bigfoot, but unable to rule it out completely, the investigation moves on in the woods of Kentucky for bigfoot.

They say the figure looked to be six feet tall and had black fur, but they can’t be certain it wasn’t a bear, although it didn’t appear to be one. The form looks like it has a gorilla like head and shoulders with it’s arms crossed.

What do you think it was mulling around his back garden? Let us know by leaving a comment below…

* For more information, check out: Kentucky man says photo might show Bigfoot raiding his garden

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I hope you enjoyed this Unidentified Mysterious Animal Sighting on Exotic Animal Lover! Until next time…

Live Exotically,

Kimberly Edwards

P.S. For more information on the history of Bigfoot, check out this really great DVD:

History’s Mysteries Bigfoot And Others Monsters Rated: NA Synopsis: The mermaid, Abominable Snowman, giant squid, and dragons are all parts of myths and mysteries. But are some real? The Komodo Dragon was merely the stuff of local legend–until the dinosaur-like, very real giant reptile with an orange

Technorati Tags: bigfoot, yeti, sasquatch, mysterious animal, cryptozoology, UMA, unidentified mysterious animal, latest bigfoot sightings, bigfoot sightings, bigfoot video, Kentucky bigfoot, cryptid, Kenny Mahoney

Bigfoot Sighting in Kentucky on Film is a post from: Exotic Animal Lover

Exotic Animal Newsflash:

Flag of Papua New Guinea

Scientists from the United States, Great Britain and Papua New Guinea stumbled upon one of the greatest wildlife discoveries ever.

They identified 40 new species of animal never before scientifically recorded in a 1 km deep volcanic crater on Mt. Bosavi in Papua New Guinea.

Among these amazing finds were a species of fanged frog, possibly the largest rat species in the world (Bosavi woolly rat) that had absolutely no fear of humans, the Henamo grunter (a grunting fish that makes noises from it’s swim bladder), a new bat, 2 other fish species, and 15 other frog species.

Animals of the world’s rain forests are proving to be extremely diverse and unique, especially ones that have been in any type of isolation. In this particular area, this crater is 4 km wide and 1 km deep with a volcano that hasn’t erupted 200,000 years ago.

In this “Lost World” there are no big cats or monkeys as the top predators. Instead, at the top of the food chain are giant monitor lizards.

Kangaroos have adapted to living in the trees. Another new species, the Bosavi silky cuscus is a marsupial creature that lives up trees and eats fruits and leaves, had no fear of humans either and came right down to sit on one of the scientists shoulders.

Currently, the rainforest of Papua New Guinea is being destroyed at an alarming rate of 3.5% per year! It’s truly time to stop this destruction to save such endangered species that are not found anywhere else on Earth.

* For more information on this scientific discovery, check out: Lost world of fanged frogs and giant rats discovered in Papua New Guinea

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I hope you enjoyed this Indonesian Animal post on Exotic Animal Lover! Until next time…

Live Exotically,

Kimberly Edwards

P.S. For more information on the amazing scenery and wildlife of Papua New Guinea, check this out:

Lonely Planet Bushwalking in Papua New Guinea (Lonely Planet Bushwalking in Papua New Guinea) Lonely Planet Bushwalking in Papua New Guinea (Lonely Planet Bushwalking in Papua New Guinea)

Technorati Tags: fanged frog, Papua New Guinea, bushwalking, Mt. Bosavi, Bosavi Crater, woolly rat, grunting fish, Henamo grunter, rainforest, rainforest animals, new species, scientific discovery

News of a Fanged Frog and Other New Species in Papua New Guinea is a post from: Exotic Animal Lover

Ladder-Backed (above) & Nuttall's (below) Woodpeckers

Out of all the exotic animals I’ve ever seen, for the first time in my life, I saw a woodpecker in person.

I’ve seen photos, heard them pecking, videos and know a bit about them, but have never seen one before.

I’m from Canada, so I’m sure there are more varieties there, but here in Dallas, there was a tiny, black with white speckled woodpecker with a touch of red on it’s head.

I’ve done my research online and found out that it’s a Ladder-Backed Woodpecker!

I knew it was a woodpecker from it’s tuft of hair on the back of it’s head, it’s pointy beak and how he was pecking the bark on the tree outside our window.

He didn’t just haul off and peck the tree to death…He hopped up the branches, pecked a few times, hopped some more and so on…

He was such a cute, little bird and I knew right away what I was looking at. They’re so quick in flight and flit around on the tree.

So neat! So exciting to me!

Woodpeckers are known to eat insects and their larva, as well as caterpillars, cockroaches, beetles, ants and sometimes berries and fruit from cacti.

Scientific Classification:
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Order: Piciformes
Family: Picidae
Genus: Picoides
Species: P. scalaris

Conservation Status: This species of woodpecker is not threatened.

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I hope you enjoyed this Bird Watching post on Exotic Animal Lover! Until next time…

Live Exotically,

Kimberly Edwards

P.S. Grab this book for information on all North American Woodpeckers:

Woodpeckers Of North America Book: Woodpeckers Of North America

Technorati Tags: birds, woodpecker, woodpeckers, Texas birds, Dallas birds, Texas woodpecker, animals, bird watching, Ladder-backed woodpecker

Ladder-Backed Woodpecker Sighting in Dallas is a post from: Exotic Animal Lover

What’s better than a commercial with gorillas in it?

Not much…LOL…

Check this one out:

I know…maybe it’s not real gorillas, but they did a great job and it’s funny!

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I hope you enjoyed this Primates post on Exotic Animal Lover! Until next time…

Live Exotically,

Kimberly Edwards

P.S. For more inforamtion on Gorillas, check out this amazing DVD from National Geographic:

Africa’s Wildlife Collection Gorillas and Great Apes DVD Witness birth, death, and the fight for survival in Africa’s heartlands.

Technorati Tags: gorilla, gorillas, cricket, gorilla commercial, funny commercial, awesome video, mammals, apes

Awesome Gorilla Commercial is a post from: Exotic Animal Lover

If you’re looking for a more unusual common pet, then you’ll want to look for more “exotic” breeds of dogs, cats, birds or fish.

The Pharaoh Hound is a great example of an exotic breed of dog that is domesticated and a fabulous pet and part of the family.

Pharaoh Hound Puppies

Pharaoh Hound

History and origin: The Pharaoh Hound is an ancient breed of hound, going back to the Phoenician empire. They took these hounds with them when they set up residence at Malta and Gozo. They are medium sized and generally used for hunting by Egyptian nobility, they hunted everything from rabbits to gazelles.

Description: The Pharaoh Hound can weigh anywhere from 45-60 pounds and will stand about 21-25 inches in length. They have a beautiful coat, either red or tan that requires very little maintenance. Their eyes are amber and they are known to be very athletic and are able to move extremely gracefully.

About the breed: Documents show that the Pharaoh Hound is the oldest domesticated hound in recorded history. They were very important in Ancient Egypt and played a prominent role in the lives of kings and nobles. Their elegance, intelligence, and power made them very popular among different hounds. They are very affectionate, but cautious, they do not appreciate chaos of any kind around them. They have a high prey drive and you have to watch them around smaller animals because they will attack them. Therefore, they are terrible watch dogs. Pharaoh Hounds are site hounds and need to have constant exercise to remain happy and content. They tend to take a long time to train and you should never rush or force them to do anything. You need to have a high level of patience because if you push them they will become passive-resistant and panic. Pharaoh Hounds have a difficult time learning to “Sit” and “Come.” They tend to be very timid and to avoid this they need to socialize from a young age.

Feeding: The Pharaoh Hounds needs 1-1 ½ cans of branded meats (13.3oz) and it is important to give them biscuits or 3 cupfuls of dry food for an all around diet.

Ideal Home: As long as the Pharaoh Hound is getting enough exercise, they can handle living in an apartment. They thrive in a peaceful environment, and will not do very well with any sort of chaos around them. They are prone to snapping if roughhousing is going on around them.

Owners need to give Pharaoh’s Hound their own area in the home and need to be respectful of their space. Potential dog owners want to avoid the Pharaoh Hound if they are loud and overbearing or have other small pets around the house.Content written by Calvin Witherspoon of ohmydogsupplies.com, check out our complete assortment of car seat covers for dogs online.

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I hope you enjoyed this Dog Breed post on Exotic Animal Lover! Until next time…

Live Exotically,

Kimberly Edwards

P.S. For more great information on Pharaoh Hounds, you can check out this really helpful book:

Technorati Tags: pharoah hound, hound, exotic dog, dog breed, exotic dog breed, hound dog, pharoah hound dog

Adopting a Pharaoh Hound: An Exotic Dog is a post from: Exotic Animal Lover

One of the simple joys in my life is watching the squirrels in the trees play around the neighborhood.

They do vex our crew of dogs at the house, but they’re so fun to watch at the same time.

They chase each other, run up and down the trees, and they’re so busy with all of their chores, like cleaning themselves, watching out for predators like dogs and cats, and tending to their meals.

Today, I took a look out of the window to see a squirrel actually lazing around in this midday Texas summer heat!

I’ve never seen this before. He was just “chillin’ out” in the tree with it’s arm hanging off a wide enough branch to lay down on.

Squirrel Hangin' Out in Tree

Too cute! Look at him with his leg hanging off the branch “chillin’”!

I’m glad my hubby was quick enough to catch a great photo…

Who knows…a minute to us might be an hour to them since they move around so fast and have shorter life spans than we do! LOL

When you’re looking for some simple pleasure, take a seat and watch the squirrels outside…

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I hope you enjoyed this North American Animal post on Exotic Animal Lover! Until next time…

Live Exotically,

Kimberly Edwards

P.S. Do you love Squirrels too? Check out this awesome art poster print:

Art Poster Print Red Squirrels By Steve Shachter Print Size 7.75 x 10 inches. Image Size 7.75 x 10 inches. High quality art poster. 7.50 Flat Shipping Rate to Continental US. No Extra Charge for Additional Prints Find all your favorite Red Squirrels posters art prints and framed art at Barewalls.com the Web’s leading art retailer. In business since 1997 Barewalls offers unmatched selection service and prices. Browse our huge selection of wall art including fine art popular posters vintage posters and decor prints.

Technorati Tags: squirrels, squirrel, North American animal, animals, arboreal species, arboreal, tree animals, common animals

Hanging Out with Squirrels in the Trees is a post from: Exotic Animal Lover

I have a little lizard friend that comes by my window and walks along the fence running the length of our home in Dallas.

Mock Chameleon

He’s a cute little guy – maybe 10 cm from nose to the end of his tail and is a khaki color.

When he sees me looking through the window, he starts showing off by forcing this rounded fan-like piece of skin out from his throat area. It turns a beautiful bright, ruby red color surrounded by sunshine yellow.

Now, I think he’s showing off to me. He’ll bob his head then thrust his beautiful fan out, walk a few inches and repeat, all the while peaking to see if I’m looking.

I think he thinks he’s a tough guy! LOL…

I don’t know if the showing off is because he feels threatened or he fancies me!

Today, just as I was telling my mother about him and describing what he does, he runs down the fence only to see me looking out the window again.

He stopped in his tracks and started his beautiful display. Just in time to accurately recount what was going on to my mother.

He came across a tree near the fence right outside my window that was about 1 foot away from him and he decided to really show off by jumping onto a limb for me to see.

This made him eye level with me and he continued to climb slowly, stopping and showing off.

The closer he got to green leaves, he turned a green color. As I wasn’t sure what kind of lizard he was, when he did this, it immediately hit me that he is a mock chameleon.

This does not mean he is actually a chameleon. He is a lizard that changes color like a chameleon.

Anyway, “Toughie” – this is what I’m calling him from now on, I enjoy our daily encounters and can’t wait to see him tomorrow.

He’s really got some personality! What a funny guy!

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I hope you enjoyed this Reptile post on Exotic Animal Lover! Until next time…

Live Exotically,

Kimberly Edwards

P.S. Check out this great Field Guide for identifying all of the reptiles in Eastern & Central North America:

The Bartletts’ guide to the alligators, crocodiles, turtles, and lizards of eastern and central North America features all 207 species inhabiting the… The Bartletts’ guide to the alligators, crocodiles, turtles, and lizards of eastern and central North America features all 207 species inhabiting the region from west Texas, to western Manitoba, to the eastern seaboard. Each species account is accompanied by a color photo, distribution map, and description including appearance, behavior, range, habitat, and prey. Some introduced species covered in theiGuide/i, such as the large and predatory Nile monitor and spectacled caiman, illuminate ever-worsening environmental and ecological conditions, particularly in Florida and Texas.   This authoritative and user-friendly reference will appeal to hobbyists, amateur naturalists, biologists, and herpetologists seeking a focused, detailed, well-organized, and richly illustrated field guide. “The Bartletts have completed a monumental undertaking in compiling information on and photographing all the diverse amphibian and reptile taxa of eastern and central North America.”—Kevin M. Enge, Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission “My choice as an effective primer for budding naturalists and young naturalists at heart wishing to become acquainted with this interesting segment of North America’s natural legacy.”—Walter Meshaka Jr., Section of Zoology and Biology, State Museum of Pennsylvania The Bartletts’ guide to the alligators, crocodiles, turtles, and lizards of eastern and central North America features all 207 species inhabiting the region from west Texas, to western Manitoba, to the eastern seaboard. Each species account is accompanied by a color photo, distribution map, and description including appearance, behavior, range, habitat, and prey. Some introduced species covered in theiGuide, such as the large and predatory Nile monitor and spectacled caiman, illuminate ever-worsening e

Technorati Tags: mock chameleon, chameleon, Texas lizards, lizards, cute lizards, North American animals, reptiles, Texas reptiles, Dallas lizards

Mock Chameleons in Texas is a post from: Exotic Animal Lover