Warts and All

"Notoriety wasn't as good as fame, but it was heaps better than obscurity."

- Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, Good Omens

When researching the Colorado river toad, it was difficult to find as much info as I would have liked about the actual natural history of the species.  Most articles that I read about it were primarily focused on the properties of the poisons secreted from the toad, and what happens to curious humans who ingest those secretions.  Which, I guess is kind of fair.  There are thousands of species of frogs and toads in the world, many of which very little is known about.  What puts this species on the radar of so many folks is that fact that some people, ill-advisedly, have taken to licking them.

There are a number of species out there which have, through one way or another, achieved some kind of notoriety.  Ask a layperson about bonobos, and you may hear them tell you a lot about the sex lives of the apes.  Ask about the cassowary, and you may get a lecture about how lethal they can be.  I don't think I've ever seen a social media post about hippos (including pygmy hippos, for which the fact really doesn't apply) that didn't have tons of comments proclaiming them Africa's deadliest animals.  And there's a ton of crazy info out their about the sex lives and reproductive anatomy of animals that I'm not even gonna touch here...

And sometimes we, as zoo professionals and educators, get a little lazy and use these scandalous facts as a hook to attract visitors to a species... but we don't really dive deeper than them to show the visitor the whole, actual animal.  Instead, the animal gets reduced to a quirky fact, which often gets exaggerated out of any proportion, might actually be very inaccurate, and in some cases comes to define the animal.  

Our animals are complex.  They are unique.  They are multifaceted.  And there's more to them than whether or not they are lickable.

Species Fact Profile: Colorado River Toad (Incilus alvarius)

                                     Colorado River (Sonoran Desert) Toad

                                           Incilius alvarius (Girard, 1859)

Range: Southwestern United States, northwestern Mexico

Habitat: Desert, Semi-Desert.  Usually found near water, such as irrigation ditches

Diet: Invertebrates (especially beetles), Small Vertebrates

Social Grouping: Asocial

Reproduction: Breeding triggered by rainfalls, usually in July.  Congregate around temporary bodies of water to breed; the males gives his (very weak) call.  Female lays up to 8,000 jelly-like eggs in strings, deposited in still or slow-moving bodies of water.  Tadpoles hatch in 2-12 days.  Metamorphosis complete in 6-10 weeks.

Lifespan: 10-20 Years

      Conservation Status: IUCN Least Concern

• Largest native toad in the United States (the introduced cane toad is larger), measuring 18-20 centimeters long and weighing 300 grams
• Greenish-brown with some mottling; a few large, wartlike growths, especially on the hind legs, but skin is overall fairly smooth and leathery.  White lump at the corner of the mouth on both sides of the face.  Underside is creamy white.  Eyes are gold
• Active by day during the cooler months, nocturnal during the warmer months.  Take shelter in rodent burrows.  Aestivate during extreme heat.  Most active in rainy weather
• Primary defense from predators is a poison secreted from the parotoid glands, powerful enough to kill a large dog.  Some predators, such as raccoons, have developed the technique of flipping the toad over the attacking the belly, far away from the poison glands.
• Though dangerous (potentially fatally so), it has been noted that ingestion of the poison (in pop culture, usually referred to as "toad licking") can lead to hallucinations.  Possession of the toxin, Bufotenin, is outlawed in much of the US, as is possession of the live toads, especially if thought to be for the purpose of using them as a psychoactive agent

Don't Lick the Toads

In the practice of handling amphibians, it's worth noting that you need to keep hands clean not just for the safety of the animal, but for you as well.  Granted, you should wash your hands after touching any animal, but with amphibians there is a special imperative.  Many species secrete toxins through their skins - the poison dart frogs are the most famous examples, but so do a wide variety of other species.  

Again, these secretions are poisonous, which means they are absorbed - assuming it doesn't bite you, you could pet a king cobra or other venomous snake all day with no ill effect, as those toxins need to be injected.

It's the absorbent nature of amphibian venom which has, among other things, given rise to the trend to licking certain species of toad to get high off of their toxins.

These poisons aren't just a potential safety concern for keepers and predators.  They can also pose a threat to exhibit-mates.  Some amphibians can be a challenge to house in mixed-species exhibits, as they may, say, soak in a water bowl and secrete their poison, to the deleterious effect of other species in their enclosure.

Save the Frogs, Wash Your Hands

 I was showing a visitor around the backside of our reptile house one day when, upon opening the back of a python display, a saw a pile of poop on the floor of the cage.  Without a second thought, I reached in, grabbed it up, and tossed it in the trashcan.  I then turned around to the sink immediately behind me and scrubbed my hands.  When I turned back around, my companion was staring at me, horrified.

"Did you just pick that up with your bare hands?" she asked.

"Do you ever forget to wash your hands before you eat, or before you touch your face?" I replied.

"Well, yes."

"I don't."

Working at zoos has made me a compulsive handwasher.  This is not a profession-wide trend, and I think I'm actually something of an outlier.  Sometimes, it's to my detriment.  I remember working on a hard project in one of our exhibits with our team when our manager brought us a box of donuts as a thank you break.  While my coworkers immediately tore into them, I had to sprint across the zoo to find a bathroom... one that wasn't out of soap... and race back in time before they were all gobbled up.  My coworkers, with no such qualms, had already dug in.  I really hoped that those brown smears on the box were chocolate, as opposed to... other things.

I've tried carrying little things of hand sanitizer with me, but dang it, it just doesn't feel the same cleanliness after.

As I demonstrated with the python, washing my hands so much means that I really don't care about getting them dirty at work, since I know they'll be scrubbed clean soon.  But it just means that the scrubbing is essential and non-negotiable.  

Washing your hands doesn't just keep you healthy - it's also important to wash your hands in between animals that you handle to reduce the risk of transferring diseases or parasites.  It also has the benefit of removing the smell of other animals from your hands so as not to entice a reaction you might not want - like, say, a snake biting at your hand because it smells small mammal or bird on them.

The one group of animals that I'm most fastidious about washing around are the amphibians - even though I try to handle them as little as possible.  With their permeable skin, they are likely to absorb environmental contaminants, so I want my hands clean - and that also means rinsed thoroughly so that they don't absorb any soap residue.  Also, their soft skin is easily damaged, so I want my hands to still be wet so I don't inadvertently tear their skin.  This, of course, makes the naturally slippery frogs and salamanders even trickier to hold.

During the 2020 coronavirus pandemic, I was happy to see that handwashing and basic hygiene came into fashion, if only briefly.  That said, I was also horrified to learn how many people weren't washing their hands before and had to be taught this basic skill.

Species Fact Profile: Blanding's Turtle (Emydoidea blandingii)

                                                         Blanding's Turtle

                                           Emydoidea blandingii (Holbrook, 1838)

Range: Northeastern/Nort Central United States, Southern Canada

Habitat: Wetlands (preference for clear, shallow water with plentiful vegetation)

Diet: Crustaceans, Fish, Frogs, Carrion, Berries, and Vegetation

Social Grouping: Asocial

Reproduction: 1-2 clutches of 8-15 eggs (range 3-22, varying across range) in a year, females usually reproducing every other year.  Usually nest in sunny areas with well-drained soil.  Incubation period 82-96 (range 65-128, again varying across range) days.  Hatchlings about 3.3 centimeters at hatching.  Sexually mature at 12-20 years based on size, with males maturing earlier than females.

Lifespan: 80 Years

      Conservation Status: IUCN Endangered, CITES Appendix II

• Males have a carapace length of 28 centimeters, females up to 22 centimeters.  Carapace is domed but slightly flattened along the midline, appears oblong from above.  Plastron is hinged, but does not close up tightly, sometimes called “semi-box” turtle
• Carapace is dark with numerous yellow or white streaks, while the plastron is yellow with symmetrical dark blotches.  The exposed skin is dark green-brown with some light speckling and a characteristic bright yellow chin and throat.
• Overwinter under or near the water, either buried in the mud or in vegetation and debris.  During the nesting system, females may travel up to 1 kilometer from the water to lay
• Predators include raccoons and foxes.  The turtles leave strong scent trails, which makes them more vulnerable to tracking by predators
• ·Only member of the genus Emydoidea, but sometimes placed in Emys with the European pond turtle and Sicilian pond turtle, rather than North American species.  Species name honors American naturalist Dr. William Blanding (1773-1857).
• Declining due to a variety of factors, including loss of habitat and fragmentation, mortality from roads (especially a problem for females on their way to lay), and increased predation of eggs and hatchlings by artificially-elevated populations of raccoons and other meso-predators.
•  Not widely sought after in trade, but even occasional collection for consumption or export can further reduce populations.  Often caught as bycatch during snapping turtle fishing.  Sometimes captured for sale on pet trade, with gravid females, being away from the water and exposed, being the most vulnerable to capture
• Raymond Ditmars described the species as very common in parts of the US when he wrote his Reptiles of the World and found it “erratic in habits” – noted that some species seemed to be primarily aquatic, others were primarily terrestrial (perhaps males vs females, seasonally?)
• Several US facilities – including Brookfield, Cosley, Shedd Aquarium, and Toronto – work with government agencies on a head-start program to collect gravid females, collect their eggs and raise them in safe conditions, and release them back to the wild years later (this supplementing the SSP breeding program).  Released turtles have been found years later, indicating their survival and the success of the program

Eating Crow

Just a reminder of the kinds of important work that Federal employees - supported by zoos - can accomplish in helping to repair and restore our natural world.  Who will step up and do the work without partners in the government?  Will the current regime even allow such efforts to take place, regardless of who is paying for them, or deem them an obstacle to resource extraction, development, and just plain "woke?"

This rare, intelligent species of crow is taking flight in Hawaii again

A Serpentine Spectrum

I used to be able to say, with complete sincerity, that in a lifetime of working with reptiles, I've never been bitten by a venomous snake.

I suppose that I can no longer say that.  Not because of any recent bite that's changed by stats - but because of the continuing evolution and redefinition of "venom."

A lot of people think of venom as binary - a snake is or it isn't, and if it is, and it bites you, you're going to die (instantly, if the movies are to be trusted... which they aren't).  In reality, venom is a spectrum.  If we're describing it by its pure definition, a substance which is injected (via fangs, stingers, etc) that has an injurious impact on the victim... well, a lot of species become venomous.  The thing is, we just never really noticed or considered a lot of them venomous before, because the impact on humans - the species that we are, naturally, the most concerned about - is negligible.  

Gartersnakes, for example, are a group of fairly small, very common snakes found across North America.  I played with them all the time as a kid, and was nipped more than once.  They are one of the species that I first learned snake handling on - and apparently, they actually are venomous.  None of those bites ever had any impact on me, but the venom was still there - it was just meant to act on their actual prey, not on humans.  The same can be said for many exotic snakes.  Tentacled snakes, an aquatic Asian species very popular in zoos and aquariums, are also mildly venomous.  In the unlikely event that you can get one to bite you (they are very docile), you may experience some slight itchiness.  Maybe.

This keeper probably wouldn't be holding a "real" venomous snake this way

This mostly becomes a headache for herp curators who are formulating protocols for their facilities.  When I was starting off in the field, the dichotomy between venomous and nonvenomous snakes was clear.  If you had training and experience that had been signed off by the curator, you were clear to work with the venomous snakes.  If you didn't, then you did not.  There were no ifs, ands, or buts, and an untrained keeper were to be found working with a venomous snake without approval, there would be hell to pay.  Some of those "mildly venomous" species - the tentacled snakes came to mind - were still counted as venomous, because no one wanted to decide where to draw the line, and it seemed like a slippery slope.

Still, new keepers were, on their first day, working with gartersnakes, and hognosed snakes, and other snakes that we know now are venomous.  I wonder how the protocols have changed to embrace this new reality.  Which species are safe to work with?  Does it matter for training purposes?  For safety drills?  For insurance?  Can venomous snakes neatly be divided into dangerous and non-dangerous categories?

Nature is messy, and animals don't seem to read the rule books that we write.  That's part of what makes working with them so chaotic - and so much fun.