Leaping Lemurs Day

So many zoos and aquariums are celebrating Leap Day with frog-themed materials, so I thought I'd just shake it up a bit and highlight some of my favorite lemurs, the sifakas of Madagascar (one species of which, Coquerel's sifaka, can be found in American zoos).

Sifaka exhibits provide a great opportunity for some simple, inexpensive interactive fun by encouraging visitors - especially kids - to see how good their jumping skills are compared to these leaping lemurs.  At the cheapest all you need is some really soft substrate for the inevitable falls.  If you wanted to go fancier, you could have screens playing videos like the one above to really demonstrate how acrobatic these guys are.

Giving kids (and older kids, up to whatever age they decide that is for themselves) the chance - and encouragement - to bounce around does more than make for a fun photo op or burn some calories before taking the kids home for the night.  Play - especially pretending to be something else, putting yourself in their shoes or, in this case, paws - can be very helpful in building empathy.  Once your kid has pretended to be a lemur (or a flamingo, standing on one leg, or a gorilla, walking on their knuckles, or whatever), they'll be one step closer to being able to see animals as beings that are worthy of our compassion, our understanding, and, most importantly, our protection.

Walk this Way

There was something inviting about the eyelash vipers, I thought as a very junior reptile keeper.  Yes, they were venomous, and therefore off-limits to me, at least until I cleared training after a probationary period.  Their relatively placid manner, coupled with an almost strictly arboreal, largely sedentary lifestyle, meant that, unlike many of the venomous snakes in the collection, I could work around them.  Don't get within a body length of them, and you were largely safe.  

Of course, their docility and immobility could also lead to complacency.  I  remember walking into the back of the reptile house one afternoon and seeing a senior keeper sleeping in a swivel chair... right in front of an open eyelash viper cage.  He'd been trying to coax the snake into feeding from some forceps, sat down in a comfy chair to do so, and, lulled by the warm surroundings (and tired from working his second job the night before) had drifted off to sleep.  The snake, thankfully, was still in its customary perch on its favored branch (I have, in my career, seen a grand total of one eyelash viper that was not wrapped around a branch for reasons of its own choosing).

Screenshot from Feeding the Beautiful EYELASH VIPER, by Mark's Reptiles

Maybe because they seem so tranquil, I've always felt more comfortable sitting and watching eyelashes up close than I have other snakes.  As part of that, the real treat has been watching them feed.  Maybe it's in part because their arboreal lifestyle give you a better vantage point than watching a snake on the ground, but watching an eyelash viper eat is quite an experience.  You'd think that the actual strike and envenomation would be the spooky part, but you'd be wrong.  The long fangs, normally folded up against the mount, swing out, one by one, seeking purchase on the unfortunate prey (in the photo above, a pre-deceased rodent).  Watching the fangs work, it reminds me of two fingers walking across a surface, maybe paging through a book.  

You see them, and wonder how they could possibly fit into the mouth with its tight little smile.

Species Fact Profile: Eyelash Viper (Bothriechis schlegelii)

                                                           Eyelash Viper

                                            Bothriechis schlegelii (Berthold, 1846)

Range: Southern Mexico, Central America, Northern South America

Habitat:  Rainforests up to 2700 meters elevation.  Highly arboreal

Diet:  Small Birds, Bats, Reptiles, Amphibians

Social Grouping: Solitary

Reproduction: Polygynous.  Ovoviviparous.  Breeds year round.  Females carry eggs for 6 months before they hatch internally.  2-20 young are born live (15-20 centimeters long), very similar to adults in appearance, independent at birth.  Sexually mature at two years old.

Lifespan: 10-20 Years

      Conservation Status:  IUCN Least Concern

• Adults measure 55-82 centimeters long, with females being longer than males.  Wide, triangular-shaped head, strongly prehensile tail.  Scales are rough and keeled.  Modified scales above eyes look like eyelashes, providing the common name.  
• Highly variable in color.  May be green, pink, red, or brown, with some brown or black mottling in many cases.  The most famous color variant is a striking electric yellow.  No color differences between the sexes
• Ambush predator, sometimes wriggling its tail as a worm lure to attract prey within range.  Have been reported to select and return to favored ambush positions, especially during bird migrations.  Color type may influence the kind of habitat that the vipers use to maximize camouflage; for example, yellow vipers blend in well near bananas
• Heat sensitive pits between eyes and nostrils help the snake detect prey.  A hemotoxic/neurotoxic venom is injected through large fangs that, when not in use, are folded up against the roof of the snake's mouth
• Males sometimes engage in courtship rituals in which they try to intimidate each other with their size, then wrestle until one is pushed down.  Bouts may last hours, and are known as "dance of the adders"
• Sometimes have been shipped across the world after being accidentally crated up in shipments of bananas

Freedom and Folly

Early last year, the country was fixated on the news out of the Dallas Zoo, where a vandal was responsible for multiple instances of animals being released from their enclosure.  At the same time, there was a copycat incident in New York's Central Park Zoo, where a vandal damaged an enclosure allowing Eurasian eagle owl Flaco to escape into the city.  Zoo officials tried diligently to recapture the bird, but were frequently thwarted by the most dangerous, least rational creature in the world - humans.  Some people, self-styled activists, were deliberately trying to sabotage zoo efforts to catch the bird by scaring the owl off.  Others were birdwatchers who, in their enthusiasm for seeing the bird, drove him off.

Today, any hope for a happy end to Flaco's story came to an end.  The bird was killed after colliding with a building.  This is one of the more common human-caused mortalities inflicted upon birds in the modern world, though Flaco was certainly one of the more famous victims.

Flaco, the Eurasian Eagle Owl, has died

I hope Flaco's death helps to draw attention to window-strikes, a major cause of mortality for wild birds.  I also hope that it serves to remind any misguided folks who were celebrating his bird's "freedom" that this is not a happy ending.  Flaco flying loose in Central Park was not a triumphant story of a bird finding freedom.  It's a story of an animal forced into unfamiliar surroundings, not his natural environment, and struggling to survive for a year before dying an unnatural death.

I hope that his former caretakers are able to have some sense of closure, though I know it's not what they were hoping for, by a long shot.  I hope that the people who hindered efforts to bring this bird home come to terms with the fact that their actions helped hasten the death of this bird.   And while I doubt that the perpetrator of this initial crime will ever be brought to justice, I hope the guilt of what they did weighs heavily on them.

Most Marvelous Mr. James

Until earlier this month, the Slimbridge Wetland Center in the United Kingdom had the unique distinction of being the only facility to house all six of the world's flamingo species.  While four of those species - the American, Chilean, greater, and lesser - are present in American zoos, two other species, the Andean and James's (or puna), both of South America's Andes Mountains, have never been commonly kept.   Earlier this month, Mr. James, the last of the Slimbridge James's flamingos, passed away.

Photo Credit: Dr. Paul Rose/WWT Slimbridge

Mr. James's passing marks a loss, of course, for people who were simply interested in flamingos and wanted to see a unique species that they hadn't encountered before.  But for those who actually knew and worked with him, his death also marks the loss of a unique individual.  Such was his impact that he even was mentioned in a meeting in Parliament, and will forever be immortalized in the minutes as "the most marvelous Mr. James."  Among those who knew him more personally was Dr. Paul Rose, a research associate affiliated with WWT Slimbridge who had known Mr. James for well over a decade.  He wrote a nice tribute to his departed avian colleague, which serves to highlight the important role that zoo animals can have on the lives of those they encounter.

Pink birds in Parliament?  The impact of animals in your care?

To quote Dr. Rose, "We must always remember that any and all of our animals can touch the lives of those who work directly with them, and that they have a wider impact too - across society more broadly... As our animals inspire us, so they inspire our visitors, and so this ripple grows until more and more are washed with the same love and gratitude for the natural world."

Gator, Can You Spare a Dime?

It's hard to believe, but there was a time when doctors encouraged you to smoke because they thought (or at least they were paid to think) that it was good for you.  I suppose this blast-from-the-past would be sort of a zoo equivalent.

According to a newspaper article from 1950, a sign in the old reptile house at The Baltimore Zoo encouraged visitors to throw coins at Big Al and Big Jim the alligators, with a special goal to land one on the reptiles' backs.  "In the olden days, when a brave desired to gain a sign of the fortunes that awaited him," it read, he would "seek out the great alligator and cast upon his broad back offerings of fine wampum.  Should the wampum strike and there remain, the gods would surely grant this warrior many favors."

The article then mentions that no one knows where this legend came from.  I suspect the answer is, "from the ether of a zoo director's imagination."  Wampum was traded pretty widely across indigenous North America, and, yes, did appear in the southeast, where alligators are found.  That being said, it was mostly a product of the northeast, especially the New England/New York region, as that's where the shells used to make it come from.  So I'm pretty sure Zoo Director Arthur Watson was just trying to scrounge up a few coins for the zoo.

Thankfully this practice has petered out.  Besides the negative health impact on the animals (to say nothing of repeatedly being pelted with bits of hard metal), you know what terrifies me the most about this?  The thought of some idiot seeing a big pile of coins lying in an alligator pool, and climbing in to help themselves... and maybe not making it back out in one piece.

The Copper Killer

Nebraska zoo extracts 70 coins from white alligator's stomach

From Omaha's Henry Doorly Zoo...

If I ever design a major zoo exhibit, there's one feature that I'm going to insist upon.  Every open-topped aquatic exhibit - seals, penguins, crocodilians, hippos - is going to be accompanied by a wishing well.  My reasoning is that humans seem to have this psychological compulsion to throw coins into bodies of water.  It just seems to be something that they can't help.  So rather than even bother trying to correct this behavior, I think we just need to find a way to redirect it towards something benign.  Throwing coins to the alligator?  Bad.  Throwing coins in the wishing well (with the understanding that the coins will then be used for conservation, or to support that animal's care, or something like that)?  Good.

If anything, I'm surprised that visitors had 70 coins in between them these days, in our increasingly cash-free society.  Hopefully that means this is at least one less hazard the animals have to worry about these days.  Now we just have to worry about someone trying to take a selfie and dropping their iPhone into the waiting jaws of an alligator.

From the News: Nearly 200 Animals Rescued from SeaQuest Littleton

Nearly 200 animals rescued from SeaQuest Littleton find new homes at Denver Zoo and Downtown Aquarium 

A Link to the Past

For obvious reasons, newer zoos (to the extent that a fifty-year old facility, like Sedgwick County, can be called "newer") are very appealing to me.  It's fun to see what zoos can accomplish when they are able to build from scratch, unhindered by older facilities and able to design with modern care practices in mind.  There are entire swaths of my zoo (some of them not even that old) that I wish I could take a bulldozer through, provided I had the funds to rebuild as I would like to.

Still, there is something very charming to me about being in an old zoo, and seeing animals alongside buildings and landscapes that convey a sense of history.  I most often get this feeling in the zoos of the northeast, where the relative age of the facilities and the need for indoor houses for the winter has led to some handsome old buildings.  I'm thinking especially of Philadelphia, National, and (ironically one of the younger major northeast zoos) Bronx.

Part of it is that I love that turn of the century architecture, especially compared to the brutalist monstrosities that arose decades later.  I think a big part is that I enjoy walking among those old buildings, down brick or cobblestone pathways, shaded by towering old trees, and feeling that the zoo was there for generations.  Working at such a place, you wouldn't just be at a job - you'd be at an institution, with tradition and lore.  Conversely, I've worked at one city zoo where one of the original keepers was still working there (albeit constantly muttering about retirement).

The trick can be striking a balance between animal welfare and preservation of facilities.  Bronx has done a fairly admirable job, I think.  Some of the old animal houses are no longer in use, repurposed for non-animal tasks.  Others are still around, but completely imagined.  The old Lion House, for example, has its exterior charm, while I inside has been completely refurbish as the beautiful Madagascar building.  Similarly, the National Zoo converted its old Bird House into a renovated facility while still retaining the old charm.  

In terms of animal welfare and conservation, zoos should always be looking to the future.  There is a lot to be said, however, about keeping an appreciative, reflective eye on the past.

Zoo Review: Sedgwick County Zoo, Part II

Continuing our tour of the Sedgwick County Zoo, we'll start with two of the more unique exhibits of the zoo, essentially forming one complex - Australia and South America. 

At most zoos, South America is largely synonymous with the Amazon, and the exhibit is often an indoor rainforest with a tank of Amazon river fish and turtles and a walk-through forest with some birds, monkeys, and sloths.  Australia is usually a kangaroo walkabout.  Here, both exhibits are vast, outdoor, walk-through aviaries, Australia feeding into South America, inhabited by a vast variety of birds, with waterfowl and parrots being especially prominent.  Each aviary is lined with large side-habitats for other animals, as well as aviaries for birds that benefit better from separate housing.  In Australia, there is a yard of southern cassowary (a bird that you decidedly don't want in a walk-through), along with wallabies, wallaroos, and emus.   South American side exhibits include giant anteater, Chacoan peccary, and maned wolf.  The trails provide a good cross-section of wildlife of both continents without simply repeating what out zoos have done.

Compared to those continents, representation of Asia is fairly limited (though birds and herps from that continent are well-represented elsewhere in the zoo).  The Slawson Family Asian Big Cat Trek provides attractive habitats mesh-enclosed habitats for Amur leopard and snow leopard, as well as a spacious yard for Amur tigers (complete with a pool) and well-perched habitats for red panda.

The zoo's North American area is considerably more comprehensive, albeit with a focus on local Kansas wildlife - including some species no longer found in the Sunflower State.  Among these are the grizzly bears, which inhabit a towering, hillside yard, visible from multiple angles.  A life-sized statue of the bears nearby makes a fun photo op.  Their smaller cousins, American black bears are found nearby.  Down the trail are aviaries for waterfowl and eagles, yards for elk, white-tailed deer, and American bison (the later visible for a high boardwalk overlooking their paddock), and a sprawling yard for Mexican gray wolves, which, like the grizzlies, are no longer found in Kansas.  A side-trail that I almost missed leads to one of the most attractive cougar exhibits I've ever seen - it took me a while to find them, but once I spotted them, perched up high, peering down at me, it was a thrill.  A small exhibit highlights the endangered black-footed ferret with underground viewing, while rattlesnakes are nearby.  And, of course, where the ferret can be found, it's primarily prey is seldom far.  In one of the most memorable exhibits of the whole zoo, the largest zoo colony of black-tailed prairie dogs I've ever seen stretches out beneath an overhead net, presumably to deter avian predators.  Prairie dogs are among the most common of zoo mammals, but I don't think I've ever seen them exhibit to such excellent effect.

Not surprisingly, the largest geographic area in this zoo, as it is in most zoos, is Africa.  Much of the African area is fairly boilerplate, dusty paddocks for giraffes, warthogs, Grevy's zebra, and black rhino, as well as a few tall birds.  Nile hippos were also here at the time of my visit, though I believe that species is aging out and won't be replaced after the current animals are gone.  What's truly special about Africa are its three adjacent sub-regions.  Pride of the Plains is a spectacular habitat for lions (with side exhibits for meerkat, African wild dog, and red river hog), based around a research camp in the African bush.  The five-acre Reed Family Elephants of the Zambezi River Valley is one of America's largest elephant exhibits.  Sedgwick County was one of a handful of zoos which, in recent years, took in elephants that were slated for culling in southern Africa, and is now home to one of the most successful breeding herds of these giant mammals in the country and is well-designed for managing the social flexibility of a breeding elephant herd.  Exhibit highlights include a half-million gallon pool, inside views of the elephant barn to help visitors learn how the animals are cared for, and one of the shipping crates used to the transfer the elephants from Africa to Kansas.

Passing an enclosure of colobus monkeys and a lagoon of pelicans, a bridge leads across the water to the Downing Gorilla Forest.  A  troop of western lowland gorillas lives in a well-forested yard, and can be viewed from either outside or from a holding building which also serves as a viewing blind into the outdoor yard.  Nearby, okapi, black crowned crane, and saddle-billed stork live in lovely wooded yards.

I've seldom visited a zoo that was so overall-excellent as Sedgwick County Zoo - many of the exhibits were of the highest quality that I've seen for animals of their species, including many bold, fresh takes on concepts that are somewhat cliché or dull at other facilities, such as the prairie dog town and the children's farm (perhaps one of the only farm exhibits I've seen where I felt like kids might actually learn something about agriculture).  There were a small number of exhibits which seemed perhaps a little tired, but I believe these are all slated for removal or freshening up.  The zoo's commitment to conservation is impressive, and as it demonstrated with the elephant project, it has the resources and the wherewithal to make decisive moves for animal welfare.  It's a shame that this fantastic facility isn't better known, but I'm sure it's reputation will spread and more folks outside of the dedicated zoo-enthusiasts will come to recognize it as the true gem of a zoo that it is.

Zoo Review: Sedgwick County Zoo, Part I

As I'm sure I've said before, I'm perpetually amazed and confused by the distribution of America's great zoos.  That New York should have an excellent zoo is clear to me, as should warm, subtropical locations that can easily keep animal outdoors year round.  But what am I to make of the fact that one of the most incredible zoos I've ever seen (and certainly one of the largest) is in, of all places... Wichita?

Sprawling over nearly 250 acres, the Sedgwick County Zoo is one of the newest large zoos in the country, opening in 1971.  As such, it has the advantage over many more established American zoos that it was free to start building for scratch, without having to accommodate old, outdated, and sometimes historically-significant facilities.  Its youth and blank slate allowed it to take advantage of newer trends in zoo design; its indoor rainforest building, The Jungle, was only the second such building in the US when it opened in 1977, after the one at the Topeka Zoo (strange how the country's first two indoor jungle exhibits both arose in Kansas).  The zoo has continued to develop, with significant contributions to conservation (from Mariana Island birds to Armenian vipers) and noteworthy animal exhibits, many of them award-winning.

Upon entering the gates (and passing the flamingo pool that is almost obligatory as an entry-exhibit in American zoos), visitors come to the original exhibit area of the zoo, the farmyard.  This is no typical barnyard, however, but an international endeavor to introduce domestic-exotics (exotic domestics?) from around the world, with themed areas for Africa, Asia, and North America.  Camels and water buffalo join the more familiar goats, sheep, cows, pigs, horses, and chickens.  The scale here is also impressive - the barn is massive, the number of animals present much greater than seen at many children's zoos, and the level of education offered impressive.  Visitors may sometimes encounter animals being taken out to graze or exercise, combining interaction with enrichment admirably.

The half-acre The Jungle building is a show-stopper by itself, a meandering walk through deep, lush forest (at the time of my visit, the roof and recently been replaced, allowing more natural light in and really helping the plants to thrive).  The entryway contains a darkened hall of terrariums that house a variety of rainforest invertebrates, and there are side exhibits for Cuban crocodile and common vampire bats, but most of the building is taken up by one vast free-flight aviary.  Visitors can see birds bopping along on the forest floor, swimming through pools, or at eye-level in the trees.  Included in the feathered ensemble are Asian fairy bluebirds, crested couas, great blue turacos, Vietnam pheasants, Victoria crowned pigeons, and sunbitterns, among many other species.  At one point, the trail dips "below the water," forming a tunnel that passes through aquariums of turtles, fish, and crayfish.  A set of aviaries tucked in the back display the rare birds of the Mariana Islands - Guam rail, Micronesian kingfisher, Mariana fruit dove.  Also, keep your eyes and ears peeled for the Indian flying foxes (giant fruit bats) that inhabit the trees.

The Amphibians and Reptiles Building is less immersive, to be sure, but it does contain an extremely impressive collection of species (including some native freshwater fish in an aquarium right inside the entrance).  Exhibits range from the excellent, such as the spacious habitat for Chinese alligators (SCZ is one of the few US zoos to successfully breed this species) with a deep pool for underwater viewing, to the... eccentric.  Okay, the later adjective really only applies to the small indoor Aldabra tortoise exhibit, elevated several feet, which is enclosed by a strange railing system that reminds me vaguely of a torture device (the tortoises also have a nice outdoor yard).  There were several species here that I'd never seen before, and some I'd never even heard of, which is no easy feat for me, considering how many US zoos I go to.  The collection of venomous snakes was especially noteworthy.

Past these two buildings is the Cessna Penguin Cove, a recreation of a stretch of South America's Pacific coast that is inhabited by a flock of Humboldt penguins, accompanied by Inca terns.  Relatively few zoos cover their penguin exhibits, which not only protects the birds from wild interlopers, which may steal fish or transfer diseases, but also allows for the inclusion of flighted birds.  The theming of the exhibit is excellent, but most visitors will bypass the nice landscaping and head straight for the underwatering viewing windows.

Chimpanzees and Sumatran orangutans are found near the entrance in the Koch Orangutan and Chimpanzee Habitat.  Commodious, well-furnished outdoor habitats with multiple viewing areas are attached to a viewing building, which serves as a miniature museum of apes, with lots of excellent signage on their conservation and natural history.  So well thought of it the exhibit that Dr. Jane Goodall chose it as the pilot for her workshop program in training ethologists (animal behavior scientists) in observing chimp behavior.

Those are just some of the many excellent exhibits and animal highlights at the Sedgwick County Zoo - and we still haven't touched the sprawling continental complexes that represent most of the zoo.  We'll cover those facilities and their occupants tomorrow!

Sedgwick County Zoo

Super Bowls and Sea Lions

On Super Bowl Sunday, the Indianapolis Zoo welcomed a baby white rhino  Speculation was rampant that the calf, born to female Zenzele, would have a Super Bowl-themed name (Travis?  Taylor?).  I know some folks really hate these names and gimmicks that tie zoos to pop culture, such as movies (remember the "Jurassic World" pose trend)?  Others find it to be a way to help insert zoos into public conversations, sort of a "hey, just reminding you, we're here... pay attention (and money) to us."

To be honest, as long as it's done in a way that in no way compromises the dignity of the animals or contradicts conservation messaging, I see little harm in it.  Of course, people have different definitions of what that means.  To some folks, posing a sea lion like the handsome fellow below would cross that line of cheapening the animal, too reminiscent of circus tricks, like bears riding bicycles or elephants doing ballet.  

To others, it's just letting the animals have fun, and have some fun along with them.

Photo Credit: Kansas City Zoo (Animal Lead, Darcy)

Pint-Sized Predators

Lithe and active, the black tree monitor is one of the most commonly seen monitor lizards in zoo collections.  Unlike its colossal cousin, the Komodo dragon, the black tree tops out at one meter in length - much of which is made up of tail.  In fact, this formidable little predator weighs less than a gray squirrel.  Which isn't to say that it wouldn't give the ol' college try and attempt to eat a squirrel, should they ever find themselves in close proximity.  And they aren't even the smallest of the monitors.

Many zoo visitors find themselves drawn to large carnivores.  Lions, tigers, and other great cats.  Bears.  Large crocodiles and huge constrictors.  Big sharks.  And certainly don't get me wrong - those animals are all really, really cool.  There's something fascinating about being in the company of an animal that, were it to exercise the option, could eat you.  Perhaps because of our fascination with these animals over the millennia, many of them are the species that we tend to know the most about managing in zoo settings.  

(To be fair, just because we've been keeping those animals for a long time doesn't necessarily mean that we've been keeping them well.  Any zoo past a certain age has (or had, until it was replaced) a dingy old line of cat cages, or a sullen, concrete bear pit.)  

Because of their popularity, most of us have seen these animals by an early age.  By the time I was 10, I'd already seen all of the bears and all of the big cats.

Most of these groups of apex predators also have a range of smaller cousins - just as predatory, just as deadly... albeit aimed at a smaller prey base.  A tiger can weigh several hundred pounds.  A sand cat or a black footed cat could curl up inside my lunchbox. 

In some cases, these smaller predators can be shyer, more secretive.  They aren't just predators, but are also prey for larger species.  Small cats have traditionally been considered poor exhibit animals by zoos, inclined to either hide all day in their nest boxes or, if deprived of hiding spaces, to pace frantically all day.  This is because zoos of the day tended to arrange their animals taxonomically, keeping all cats together in one building.  That little sand cat was spending all day looking across the hall into the eyes of lions, tigers, and leopards, all of which would have happily snacked on it.  You'd have developed a nervous tic too, in those cases.  When houses appropriately, they make excellent exhibit animals.

Others, and the smaller monitors fit into this category, just never seem to understand that they are... well, small, and will heroically launch themselves at you.  It's kind of cute, really.  They want so badly to eat you, but they just can't.

So pity the pint-sized predators.  It must be hard to belong to a lineage of ancient, powerful predators, revered and feared by millions... but when people look at you, all that they can say is, "Awww..."

Species Fact Profile: Black Tree Monitor (Varanus beccarii)

                                                   Black Tree Monitor

                                            Varanus beccarii (Doria 1874)

Range: Aru Islands (eastern Indonesia, off the coast of New Guinea)

Habitat:  Humid Forest, Lowland Rainforest, Mangrove Forest

Diet:  Insects, Small Lizards, Frogs, Crustaceans, Small Mammals, Birds, Eggs

Social Grouping: Solitary (not territorial)

Reproduction: Reproduction has not been observed in the wild, but it is theorized that they lay their eggs in arboreal termite nests or in tree cavities, which provide heat and humidity while still being dry.  Courtship consisting of the male chasing the female, with copulation taking place suspended off the ground.  Breeding may take place twice per years.  3-7 days incubated period 165 days.  Sexually mature at 2 years old

Lifespan: 10-15 Years

      Conservation Status:  IUCN Data Deficient, CITES Appendix II

• Sexes alike.  Hatchlings and juveniles are dark gray in color, with regular rows of bright yellow-green dots, particularly on the back.  As the animal matures, the skin turns completely black.  Scales are small and non-overlapping, forming a granular pattern
• Body length is approximately one meter, about two-thirds of which is made up of the long, thin tail.   The tail is prehensile and is used solely for climbing and balance, not at all for defense as is seen in many other monitor species.    The limbs are long and slender with elongated digits, large claws, and adhesive soles, all adaptations for life in the trees.  Males larger than females, with larger heads and broader tails.
• The teeth are large for a monitor, possibly an adaptation for holding onto prey animals seized in the treetops.  They will also use their long, slender limbs to fish prey animals out of crevices in the trees.
•  Captive specimens have been observed eating plant matter, but plants have never been detected in the gut content of wild monitors
• Natural predators are larger lizards and snakes.  They are also predated by foxes, which have been introduced to the islands.
• Have been observed engaging in bipedal ritual combat in the trees        
• Originally classified as a separate species, then reassigned as a subspecies of the emerald tree monitor (V. prasinus) before being re-elevated to full-species status in 1991, though still part of the V. prasinus species complex, along with the emerald, blue, and yellow tree monitors
• Species name honors the Italian explorer Odoardo Beccari (1843-1920), who explored and collected in New Guinea, Indonesia, and Malaysia
• Very poorly studied in the wild, with much of the available information coming from captive specimens.  It is assumed that the species is primarily arboreal and spends most of its time in the canopy, but studies with other tree monitors suggest that it may be more terrestrial
• Loss of habitat due to deforestation and collection for the pet trade are believed to be the primary drivers of the decline.

Pond. James Pond.

 Every year, when we get close to the Super Bowl, there's an constant trend of zoos trying to soak up some of the publicity by having their animals "predict" who the winner of the big game will be.   The animal in question is usually a big cat or bear, and the act usually consists of ripping apart one of two enrichment items themed around the two teams.  Or an elephant stomping on something.

Credit due to Blank Park Zoo for allowing one of the less-celebrated taxa to have their moment in the sun by making the pick.   Fish can be just as charismatic as big mammals, and a lot more so than many people I know.  Also, love the fish's name...

Book Review: The Beak of the Finch - A Story of Evolution in Our Time

Ok, so my post from yesterday might have a few caveats.  As it turns out, some wild animals *do* change right before our eyes, generation to generation.  And the implications of these changes can change how we see our world.

When I did my book review of Beaverland, I mentioned how some species are keystone species not only in a biological sense but also a cultural and historical sense, having an outsized impact on our own species.  A suppose that a subset of that could be species that have had an outsized impact on science.  Among those are a group of a dozen or so largely unimpressive-looking little birds that flit about a group of volcanic islands out in the Pacific.  Their unique scientific importance might never have come to light, if not for an inquisitive British naturalist looking through the specimens he collected from his one memorable voyage away from his homeland.  That biologist, of course, was Charles Darwin, the birds were the finches of the Galapagos Islands.

In the Pulitzer Prize winning The Beak of the Finch, science writer Jonathan Weiner tracks the decades-long study of the finches of Daphne Major (one of the least-visited islands of the Galapagos) by husband-and-wife biologist team Peter and Rosemary Grant, along with generations of their grad students.  Camping out for months at a time in a harsh, unforgiving landscape, the Grants and their students came to know the finches of their island like a shepherd knows their flock, and devoted years to tracking the slight changes in the shapes and sizes of the birds beaks in response to years of extreme weather, including back-to-back drought and flood.  Taking careful measurements, the Grants were able to provide key insights into how species change in response to environmental conditions.  Processes that Darwin thought would be too slow for scientists to ever document were playing out in real time.

A simple ecosystem with a limited cast of ecological characters neatly isolated from the rest of the world, Daphne Major provides a near-perfect laboratory setting for studying evolution in action.  Weiner's book provides an excellent overview of Darwin's Theory of Evolution through Natural Selection, as well as how the findings on finches in the Galapagos have implications for modern life.  For example, the same forces that sculpt the beaks of birds off the coast of Ecuador are also impacting our own lives through penicillin-resistant bacteria and insecticide-resistant pest species.  

One aspect of the story that I found particularly fascinating was the documentation of the birds' responses to two back-to-back terrible weather events - a drought, followed by torrential rains.  Weiner tells us that these rare weather events for the Galapagos are becoming more and more common, pushing the birds' ability to adapt and survive to the limits.  Darwin's finches, simply by stranding themselves on the Galapagos, surviving, and diversifying to fill various niches, helped to inspire the theory that changed the way we view the natural world and our relationship and place within in.  The question remains to be seen as to whether they'll be able to survive the changes that we are wreaking open the world we share.

The Beak of the Finch: A Story of Evolution in Our Time at Amazon.com

Eternal Animals

 "How fleeting are all human passions compared with the massive continuity of ducks."

- Dorothy L. Sayers

Sometimes, when I'm busy with a fairly mindless task, either at home or at work, I start to get a little philosophical.  The other day, I happened to be traipsing down the path in our zoo and happened to look at a cheetah, and my brain started along a new train of thought.  

Cheetahs are known for their very limited genetic diversity, the result of a natural near-extinction event.  Even forgetting that, the slow rate of evolutionary change (both natural selection and that zoos and captive breeding programs try to avoid artificial selection) means that cheetahs in all-recorded history are pretty much the same.  That means that a cheetah at my zoo is almost indistinguishable from a cheetah on the Serengeti.  It also means that either of those cheetahs is, for all practical purposes, the exact same as the first cheetahs to come to American zoos over a hundred years ago.  It means that they're also the exact same as the cheetahs that were kept in the royal court of Akbar the Great as trained hunters hundreds of years ago.

(Domestic animals, with centuries of selective breeding, are a very different story.  I don't know what a Bronze Age herder would make of our modern animals).

And it's not just the cheetahs - the lions we see in zoos wouldn't be different from those fighting gladiators in the Coliseum.  Grizzly bears would have been the same as the ones that chased Lewis and Clark across the northern plains.  The giraffes would be indistinguishable (accounting for subspecies) as those that bedazzled Europeans when they first appeared after an absence of thousands of years on that continent following the fall of Rome.

A darker flip side - when I look at older zoo and circus photos of chimps in tiny barred cages, too big to be cute and cuddly anymore, or elephants chained and beaten, those aren't some past breed of stoic, durable beast that we no longer have with us.  Those animals, those individuals, were just as sensitive, intelligent, and capable of fear and joy as are the ones I know today  They were just never given the lives in which they were allowed to be happy or wild. 

I didn't really have any grand conclusion where I was going with this.  It just added yet one more facet of animals that I was able to appreciate - their timelessness.  Excepting the ones that we drive to extinction, of course...

The Test of Time

 When I was making my most recent Sporcle quiz, US Zoos and Aquariums by Exhibit, I was caught up in the details of picking which exhibits would be the most iconic to represent each facility.  Some of them were brand spanking new, the newest of them having just opened last year.  Others go back decades.  If I'd tried, I probably could've even named one or two that were over a century old (for example, the iconic 1904 World's Fair Flight Cage, since rebranded as the Cypress Swamp, at the St. Louis Zoo).

If I were to have hopped over to Europe, I could have found even older exhibits.  Some of these older zoo exhibits are still in use to excellent effect.  Elsewhere, I could point out exhibits that are much newer and opened with great fanfare, but were considered mediocre and in some cases were dropped within years of their opening.

What makes a zoo exhibit timeless, able to continue in usage for decades?

I think a key provision is space.  A lot of zoo exhibits become obsolete or are replaced because they no longer are considered spatially appropriate for the animals that are housed in them, and must be cleared away to create new, larger habitats.  (Conversely, the habitat could be kept, but the occupants changed to be species that don't require as much space).    A successful exhibit will build not for the present and its requirements, but for the future, with the idea that standards of animal care will evolve over time.  In other words, take the biggest space you think you may need.  Than, make it bigger.

Another design feature I would recommend is planning for future maintenance.  All exhibits age and will need repairs, be it the replacing of furniture or the addition of new features, or, for exhibits with aquatic features, changes to filtration and life support systems.  If there is no way to upgrade those features without destroying the exhibit, then the exhibit will not survive for future use.  (Some exhibits seem to have undergone a "Ship of Theseus" renovation process over the years, with so many upgrades and renovations that one could ask if they really are the same exhibit anymore).

Remarkably few exhibits can really be said to pass the test of time.  At my own zoo, I can only think of a small number of exhibits that predate my birth and still house the animals that they were built for.  None of the exhibits that were there when my parents were children are still standing with the species that they were built for, and those few that remain from that age are all heavily modified, either renovated several times or with much different (smaller) animals in them.

At Carl Hagenbeck's zoo outside Hamburg, Germany, lions watch grazing antelope from across a hidden moat, just as their predecessors would have done nearly 120 years ago.  Even older exhibits occur elsewhere in Europe (at least where the destruction of WWII didn't wipe them from the map).  I wonder which exhibits we build today (if any) will be standing in their original form 100 years from now.

The Crane Who Loved Me

Over the years of working with zoos and animals, I've had folks ask me if various animals are like my pets.  The truth is - they're not.  Working in a zoo isn't like being a massively over-stretched pet owner.  It's more like living and working in a small town, where you know everyone, but to varying degrees.  Some of your animal colleagues you're more on nodding terms with.  Some you feud with.  And a certain number of them are just very special, ones you know that you'll remember forever.

There are few things which have enchanted me about this field more than the bond that can form between keepers and animals.  And there are few bonds that I've heard of that were more special than that between Chris Crowe, keeper at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute in Front Royal, Virginia, and Walnut the white-naped crane. After 20 years, that bond was ended with the crane's passing at the (for a crane) very ripe old age of 42.

I first shared the story of Chris and Walnut almost 10 years ago, and again a few years later, when it caught national attention.  I'd heard about it long before.  It's sad to see the final chapter come to a close, but there was an extraordinary legacy to it.  Instead of being written off as a "problem" bird who just couldn't be socialized and simply tucked away somewhere, Chris Crowe invested an enormous amount of time and emotional capital into this bird and her well-being... to say nothing of her conservation potential.  In her lifetime, Walnut produced eight chicks, a valuable contribution for this rare, beautiful species.

The Crane Who Loved Me

She had a long, elegant neck and orange eyes.  He was a jeans-and-hoodie guy.  She was a white-naped crane named Walnut, who chose him as her partner.  He was Chris Crowe, her keeper at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute, who tried to mimic the part. (Article continues with link)