How to: avoid tiny zippy animal escape

 Over the course of various research endeavours, I've worked on a wide variety of animals, ranging all the way from invertebrate larvae to tennis players. However, my biggest research projects have definitely been my Honours and my PhD, which I did/am doing on the Asian house gecko (Hemidactylus frenatus) and the yellow-footed Antechinus (Antechinus flavipes), respectively.

What do these two animals, a reptile and a small carnivorous marsupial, have in common? 

Asian house gecko vs. yellow-footed Antechinus. Image credit: Amanda Niehaus, Rebecca Wheatley.

Well, they're both pretty small. And they're also both pretty dang fast.

Cute little rascals. Image credit: Wikimedia Commons, Rebecca Wheatley.

These two factors create a high-stress environment when handling the animals is unavoidable but you can't quite handle the thought of them escaping. You can believe me when I say that handling tiny, zippy animals develops you some pretty epic reflexes – but, regardless of how good you get, sometimes you're bound to slip up and one will get away. Rather than spend half an hour crawling around the lab floor and occasionally smashing your head off low-hanging shelves, wouldn't it be good to have a way to handle them such that a dashing escape resulted in them not going anywhere?

Image credit: Rebecca Wheatley (left/right), Amanda Niehaus (middle).

This is where mums are great. I was lamenting over gecko escape (especially painful to recapture because they're prone to caudal autotomy, or tail-dropping), and my mum came up with a genius idea that's proven just as useful for Antechinus handling.

Luckily neither species minds a firm grip.

Step 1: Go buy a delicates bag from your local grocery store. Hell, buy a pack of three different sized ones for AUD$3.

Step 2: Put your animal's little hut in the bag.

Step 3: Put your arm in the bag, and zip it or draw-tie it up around your arm as depicted below.

Ratbags aren't escaping now! Image credit: Amanda Niehaus.

Step 4: Get the little brat out and do whatever you need with it. If it tries the great escape, guess what? It ain't getting out of the bag and is easy to recapture.

Various things you can do with the animals once they're in the bag - even if it's just getting a good grip so you can move it to something else.

So there you have it: a cheap, easy way to avoid tiny, zippy animal escape. Thanks mum! Here's to that genius gene transmission, right?

All images by Rebecca Wheatley unless otherwise credited.