28 Oct 04
Hi everyone,
My name is Kristina Vintersten, and yes, I have been a "lurker" for a while, just listening to all that very useful information people post in this list. I have mostly been quiet just because I am relatively new to the to this hobby, but I guess it is time now I introduce myself and my partner - Andras Nagy. We live in Toronto, and have at the moment two cobalt Tincs. Having the mate of our female died right after we got them about a year ago, we are now happy to have got hold of a new male a few moths ago. The female seemed to greet her new buddy with delight, there are a lot of calling going on, and we are now hoping for luck to get some offspring. We have had less luck with some green Auratus we got just after they got established on fruitflies after coming out of the water. Initially, they did very well, grew and were happy and active. After about 4 months though, one after the other (3 in total) developed spindly legs. As the hind legs became weaker, they could not catch the flies anymore, and so we had to put them down to end their starvation. It was a very sad and frustrating experience, and I would really (as I guess most of you) like to find out the reason behind this condition. Both Andras and me work as researchers in the Molecular Biology field, which has it very special advantages. One of the most prominent ones in terms of frogging that we have colleges working with Drosophila. These people are discarding fruitfly cultures on a regular basis, many of them in full production. So we are blessed by a very easy access to food, no worries about breeding flies at home, just go pick up the single use flasks with fruitflies in the lab once per week. These cultures are really productive, and seem to last a good time. Of course, this may not be an option in the future if/when the number of our frogs increase, but I could recommend anyone with "small scale" demands to try get in touch with a Drosophila research lab in you area, perhaps they will be only too pleased to let you take care of their left over cultures. In addition to the frogs, our family will soon be expanding also with a two-legged member: we are expecting our first child in March next year:)
Kristina
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