Interesting title, isn't it?
I'd like to point out, right from the start, that he really is a pleb.
Sitting in his water bowl for absolutely no reason?
Pleb.
Trying to eat anything that moves...
...and quite a few things that don't?
Pleb.
Performing a disappearing act despite living in an enclosure roughly the size of a coffee table?
Pleb.
Randomly shouting at three o'clock in the morning for reasons known only to himself?
Pleb.
Completely changing the way I think about dwarf pixie frogs?
Believe it or not...
Also Pleb.
He is, quite simply...
Pleb.
Officially, he's a Dwarf Pixie Frog (Pyxicephalus edulis), the smaller cousin of the Giant Pixie Frog—better known as the Giant African Bullfrog. Those frogs have some serious heft behind them.
Pleb...
Well...
Pleb appears to have been built using whatever bits evolution had left over that afternoon.
He'll eat insects, worms, fish, reptiles, amphibians, mammals and birds without a second thought.
He'll also have a very enthusiastic go at my fingers, the feeding tongs, the substrate, the occasional stick...
...and, on one memorable occasion...
Venom.
Not the snake.
The action figure.
He'll eat absolutely anything.
My job is making sure he doesn’t.
Overfeeding pixie frogs is remarkably easy.
Not because they're greedy, because they'll quite happily eat every single time you offer them food.
Pleb is no different.
He sees food... — or, on occasion, something that vaguely resembles food — ...and immediately decides that eating it is probably an excellent idea.
Any frog species you care to mention is a little comedian.
Monkey Tree Frogs stalk impossibly thin branches like tiny green marmosets.
Pacman Frogs (Ceratophrys spp.) were apparently designed by somebody who started with a mouth and simply forgot to finish the rest of the frog.
And Pleb...
Well... Pleb's solution to most situations is to see whether they're edible first.
Frogs are funny.
Ninety percent of the time they're also wonderfully straightforward to feed.
Because they'll nearly always eat.
But appetite isn't the same thing as nutrition.
And that's where things become a little more interesting.
If you or I lived entirely on Chinese takeaway, we'd probably be very happy.
For a while.
We wouldn't be particularly healthy.
A varied diet isn't just about avoiding boredom. It's about balancing proteins, fats, vitamins, minerals and trace nutrients that no single food item can provide on its own.
Pleb would quite happily eat the same thing every day for the rest of his life.
My job is making sure he never gets the chance.
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