Hydras Planarians Pond Snails Water Bugs Tadpoles Newts Toads Earthworms Ants Crickets Praying Mantes Brine Shrimp Butterflies and Moths Hermit Crabs Starfish
Introduction Selecting a Pet When you hear the word pet you usually think of a dog a cat a parakeet or perhaps a hamster or gerbil This book is about other kinds of pets Wild animals that you can keep in a one-gallon jar in your room at home The animals are small and easily cared for with just a little time and effort By setting up a jar and learning to care for a wild pet you’ll find out some strange and interesting things and enjoy yourself besides Dogs and cats make wonderful pets They quickly learn to recognize you and other members of your family They can be very affectionate and often greet you when you come in the door But dogs and cats are really domesticated animals They live a life that you decide for them Their environment is your home and they go outside when you take them out for a walk They eat and drink what you believe is good for them You decide whether they should be allowed to mate and have puppies or kittens You put a collar around their necks and register them as your pets Many dog and cat pets live more like people than like wild animals The wild animal pets that you meet in this book are not at all like that They need an environment in a container that is very similar to the environment in which they naturally live
Most if not all will never learn to recognize you Most will pay no attention to you at all But these wild animal pets will let you see things about the way they live that are almost impossible to see in any other way They will continue to live their natural lives as long as you supply them with an appropriate environment You’ll be able to see the way a tiny freshwater animal called a hydra uses its tentacles to catch even tinier water animals animals You’ll see how a quarter-inch flatworm called a planaria planaria is able to regrow a new head a new tail or even two heads and two tails You’ll be able to watch how a tadpole changes and grows and finally develops into a frog You’ll see how a caterpillar spins a chrysalis and then undergoes an enormous change to emerge as a butterfly You’ll see the hermit crab carrying its home on its back as it scurries around in a jar of seawater seawater No these wild animals will never learn to recognize you But they will interest you in a thousand different ways A jar containing a wild pet is like a window to the world of nature Many of the animals you will read about in this book are easily found in a back yard a vacant lot a pond or at the seashore Some are more difficult to find and we’ll tell you where and how to look for them Some of the other animals can be bought at a pet shop All of the animals mentioned in this book are safe to keep Many wild animals are really not suited to be pets They need special care and a great deal of attention For this reason you shouldn’t collect just any animal you find
Any living thing that you take home with you becomes your responsibility Make sure that you will be able to feed it and house it properly Think about whether you have the time and the interest to care for it If you don’t want to care for an animal you should not collect it None of the animals you will read about in this book is threatened with extinction It goes without saying that you should neither collect nor purchase any threatened species species of animal You can get up-to-date information about endangered species from zoos and museums as well as from organizations such as the National Audubon Society and the World Wildlife Fund Never collect more animals than you can care for properly properly Leave any others where you find them If you want to try keeping a number of different kinds of wild pets keep a few for a short time and then release them in the same area or a similar one Never release an animal in a place where others of its kind are not already found Not only may it be harmed but it may also harm the animals in the area In many places around the world the introduction of a foreign animal has disrupted the lives of native animals When you go for a walk or a collecting trip observe the ways of the wild Think of how the animals live in their surroundings surroundings and how they depend upon the natural world for their survival Trying to provide similar surroundings for an animal in a jar in your home may help you to understand better what you see in the world around you
