Hey, Human... It's Bug O'clock

We are! I've been away from almost everything for a while because winter weather was kicking my butt... and I may have kind of sort of fallen down the rabbit hole of Final Fantasy XIV and played through almost all of its expansions this past year. He was very pleased with his slightly-delayed offering of hop bugs this evening. The beardies were WAY more enthusiastic about theirs, though.

@DaddyEvil That one is officially gone now. They transitioned to a new domain with a decently different model that's more along the lines of Facebook than what they had before. I moved all of my posts over before it went down but still haven't done anything with the new site. I sold off most of my crypto assets last year and I don't know if I want to mess with those any more... maybe once the IRS has standard forms for reporting crypto gains and losses and I don't have to manually calculate everything. That made doing taxes a pain this year. The funny thing is Cheeto is absolutely fine with being disturbed... if there's at least one bug involved.

@yukimori Good! I'm happy to know everyone is okay! I wasn't sure if you were still trying to make that other site pay... I left it after having problems getting my money from the site. As long as you were having fun, we all need breaks from the internet at times. He must have still been ticked at you for disturbing him.

@yukimori .........Good grief! How many would he eat?

They don't jump very often (or ours don't, at any rate) but he was VERY intent on that bug bin when he saw me walk in with it. Now he's standing in his bowl pointedly staring at me to remind me that six large crickets isn't enough of a meal.

@celticeagle I'm pretty sure he'd keep going until he was ready to burst.

Yep, that's his "you woke me up for THIS?" face. He's basically laser focused on the bugs whenever I bring them into the room. It's gonna throw him for a loop next week when the treat bugs come in the mail and they come from different cups than he's used to.

@yukimori "How dare you!" Oh I'll bet! New treat bugs . . . for him it'll be like going coo coo for cocoa puffs !

@yukimori He does look satisfied. What an expression!!!

It's crazy how expressive they can be. Maybe I just anthropomorphize a bit more than I should... but they all have distinct personalities and moods. I'd say he was pretty satisfied with that first bug.

@yukimori Yeah, I know. Doesn't mean I couldn't joke about it. Yyou know, because we have more bugs here then we want or need sometimes.

@kaylachan I know. Wish we could actually do something about it... that would be a win-win for everyone involved!

I wish I could! It'd be so much cheaper to feed them wild caught bugs, but pesticides are a big concern and not all of the bugs are safe for them to eat. A good example of that is hornworms... they can eat them if they're captive bred, but wild ones eat plants that make them toxic for reptiles to eat.

I think he'd eat ALL the crickets if I let him. He had six of them today and thought he needed more. The beardies got a lot of this batch but the store was running low so they're stuck with mostly salad until the roaches I ordered come in next week.

@yukimori Six is quite a lot

@yukimori Ah. Not good.

He's extremely food motivated, so he was thrilled when I finally gave him his dinner. And then promptly disgruntled because he saw there were way more than 6 bugs in the bin and how dare I not give him all of them, too?!

Fantastically menacing, wasn't it? It's doubly funny because they usually look like they're smiling!

@yukimori Yes it is

We did finally venture out and get the bugs. He's much less disgruntled now.

@yukimori Now he should be happy.

I had to laugh when I stood up and saw him standing like that.

@yukimori

He's definitely a cutie. He's staring me down now because I only gave him six big crickets... he knows he can get my kids to give him more by standing in his bowl looking sad but I don't fall for that trick.

They do look like they're smiling a lot of the time! The lighting made him look pretty menacing for that shot but he's usually pretty cute.