{"id":1504,"date":"2024-05-23T19:26:04","date_gmt":"2024-05-23T10:26:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/?p=1504"},"modified":"2024-05-23T19:26:04","modified_gmt":"2024-05-23T10:26:04","slug":"mayus-beloved-pet-toad-kuromaru","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/index.php\/2024\/05\/23\/mayus-beloved-pet-toad-kuromaru\/","title":{"rendered":"Mayu&#8217;s beloved pet toad, Kuromaru"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"480\" height=\"480\" src=\"https:\/\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/kuromaru1.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1505\" srcset=\"https:\/\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/kuromaru1.jpg 480w, https:\/\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/kuromaru1-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/kuromaru1-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/kuromaru1-100x100.jpg 100w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>It&#8217;s hard to believe that it&#8217;s been nearly two years already! In summer &#8217;22, my wife Mayu brought home a baby toad from her work. A coworker had a batch of baby toads and gave one to Mayu. He was so tiny at first! Some toad species are hatched as toads rather than as tadpoles first, but I believe this species are tadpoles although he already had legs when we got him. This guy was tinier than a grain of rice! He was such a dark color, nearly black. When we put him in the plastic box with dirt, he was so dark and tiny that he was hard to see. You couldn&#8217;t see him unless you looked very hard. Ulan named him Kuromaru, which is a ninja-sounding name (<em>kuro<\/em> is &#8220;black&#8221; in Japanese). It was an appropriate name, since he was nearly black and could blend in with his surroundings, like a ninja.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A few years ago when I first started this blog, we had a Japanese rhinocerous beetle named <a href=\"https:\/\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/index.php\/2022\/01\/06\/pun-chans-new-year\/\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/index.php\/2022\/01\/06\/pun-chans-new-year\/\">Pun-chan<\/a> whom we cared for for a very long time. She lived much longer than expected because of the care we gave her. Now we have this cute toad. He has grown so big since we first got him!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"480\" height=\"480\" src=\"https:\/\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/kuromaru2.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1506\" srcset=\"https:\/\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/kuromaru2.jpg 480w, https:\/\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/kuromaru2-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/kuromaru2-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/kuromaru2-100x100.jpg 100w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Kuromaru has such a big belly! Here he is posing with his bath.  When we first got him, his bath was a bottlecap. Now it&#8217;s a big plastic container. Toads like water, but they are not good swimmers like frogs are. They also do not sing like frogs. He is always quiet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"480\" height=\"480\" src=\"https:\/\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/kuromaru3.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1507\" srcset=\"https:\/\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/kuromaru3.jpg 480w, https:\/\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/kuromaru3-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/kuromaru3-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/kuromaru3-100x100.jpg 100w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"480\" height=\"480\" src=\"https:\/\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/kuromaru4.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1508\" srcset=\"https:\/\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/kuromaru4.jpg 480w, https:\/\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/kuromaru4-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/kuromaru4-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/kuromaru4-100x100.jpg 100w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>He&#8217;s so cute!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s hard to believe that it&#8217;s been nearly two years already! In summer &#8217;22, my wife Mayu brought home a baby toad from her work. A coworker had a batch of baby toads and gave one to Mayu. He was so tiny at first! Some toad species are hatched as toads rather than as tadpoles &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/index.php\/2024\/05\/23\/mayus-beloved-pet-toad-kuromaru\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Mayu&#8217;s beloved pet toad, Kuromaru&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[168,173],"class_list":["post-1504","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life","tag-kuromaru","tag-pets"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1504","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1504"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1504\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1509,"href":"https:\/\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1504\/revisions\/1509"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1504"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}