MANDERLING: The Tiger Salamander (Ambystoma Tigrinum)
a.k.a. mole salamander
This majestic beast of the 10 gallon terrarium is a ferocious hunter of the earth worm and grubs that inhabit the vicinity of her feeding grounds. She can ingest large amounts of food, such as up too 20 worms, in one foraging.
This particular specimen is over 6 inches long from nose to tail. Her large girth is a testament to the impressive hunting ability of this beast. Her appetite is so great that she is known to completely ignore a smaller worm for the much larger and satisfying fingers of a human hand. She lunges and latches onto a fingertip with her ridged bumps that serve as teeth. Then she proceeds to hang onto the finger even if lifted off the ground. To the shrieking human the experience is not unlike the feeling of those large koe gold fish trying to suck your toes off when you were 8.
Here the handler is tentatively offering a large worm to Manderling; she appears interested.
She has taken the worm and is now shaking it vigorously to insure it's cooperation in being eaten.
She is working hard to swallow the worm.
This worm was small enough for her to eat it in one bite, except for the tip.
ABOUT MANDERLING: I bought her form some people who had her in a horrendous setup of sharp fish tank gravel and slime covered logs. She was thin and reclusive. They had only been feeding her goldfish and crickets! I paid them $20.00 for a creature that is worth $75.00 easily, and then brought her home to a tank i had already set up years before as a plant terrarium. She loved it! The soft dirt and foliage to hide under was much more to her liking. That very day I fed her an inordinate amount of worms from the garden till they were trying to crawl out her mouth.
She dug a burrow that night and would resurface about every 3 to 5 days to be fed some more. After 3 months of this pampering she is much more plump and very sociable. Although not the brightest of amphibians she is a delight to have.
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