Rainforest of the Americas

"Oo, new digs"

Hooray! The last piece to Phase I of the LA Zoo's Master Plan is finally complete. The new (and lovely) Rainforest of the Americas is now open to the public. I still remember the first part of the puzzle, the Chimpanzees of Mahale Mountains, opening in 1998. I was employed by the zoo at the time, working in the Behavioral Research Division, studying how the chimps could best make use of their new space. That was the zoo's first step into a new century of exhibit technology. I sincerely hope this new space won't be the last, despite the City of LA's steadily declining support. But for now, let's celebrate the new space, and what it can mean for the conservation of its rare denizens in the wild!

Baird's Tapir!

 

Tapir Feet! 

Cotton-top Tamarin

Giant River Otter - and hapless fish

Apparently fish are tasty

Emerald Tree Boa - added to his new home while we watched

Emerald Tree Boa

Meet the Basking Shark

What could be more frightening than a giant 35 foot shark? A whole lot of things, it turns out, if the shark in question is a basking shark (Cetorhinus maximus).

Photo Credit: NOAA

I was surprised to stumble across this report and video from Panama City, Florida, showing a kayaker's encounter with one these prodigious creatures. Surprised, and also envious. I grew up in Florida, right on the gulf, and never saw anything half that spectacular. Well, aside from the sea turtles I watched nesting one night. And the dolphins we used to watch from the grounds of the Ringling Museum. Oh, and the time a couple of roseate spoonbills flew over our house... Okay, so Florida was a good place to watch wildlife way back when. But the point is, I never got to see a basking shark!

There's a good reason for that: despite the fact that their habitat spans the globe, they are very rare visitors to the waters around Florida. That's because they're usually found in more temperate waters. Which makes sense for an animal that large. Imagine the heat one must generate, even at rest. And while you're at it, try to imagine an animal this huge. Thirty-five feet of living flesh. That's a whole lot of fish!

Photo Credit: Daily Mail

But, unlike some extinct giant sharks, basking sharks are not flesh eaters. They survive instead by filtering plankton from seawater. That's the purpose of that enormous mouth: the more water they can suck in the more plankton they can filter out. Just how wide can they open that mouth? Wide enough for a fair-sized human child to stand up in: nearly four feet!

These peculiar animals, like many denizens of the deep, have been shrouded in mystery until quite recently. But tracking studies have now revealed that they can travel up to 1,500 miles in one day and remain at depths of 3,300 feet for five months at a time. Oh, and they give birth to cute little live sharks, not eggs.

So, a 35 foot shark... That must be the largest fish out there, right? Nope, that honor goes to the whale shark (Rhincodon typus), measured at up to 41 feet long. Sadly, I've never seen one of those either.

Frog Bag Photos Volume 5: Creatures from the Seattle Museum

Horror of the Flies!

Since people know I work with animals they sometimes call me to deal with something that isn't, strictly speaking, a member of the zoo. People seem to equate "zoo keeper" with  "person who will touch things that I wouldn't touch with a cattle prod".

This happened yesterday when I got a call to "remove a bug that's bothering a guest". Okay, not really my job, but I was curious to see what kind of silly person couldn't remove a harmless bug themselves. And I was curious to see what the bug was. I grabbed a small jar and a net and headed off.

What I found was completely unexpected. No interesting spider. No giant centipede. No weird beetle. Just 50 MILLION FLIES, all congregated in one corner of the room near the floor. Okay, so maybe there were only hundreds of flies. But it seemed like more.

What were they doing there? The room was spotless. No food anywhere, no spilled drinks. No dead squirrels outside the window. Nothing to draw them in! And oddly, they seemed especially attracted to a coaxial cable plug. Could it be Satan?

Well, no. At least, I think there is a more parsimonious explanation. After I removed the flies I did a little research. I assumed that they were house flies, but I think they may have actually been something called cluster flies. These insects look a lot like house flies (the difference is just a few golden hairs) but their life-cycle is different. They feed on earthworms, staying out of sight in the soil most of the time, and hatch out at the end of summer. As the weather cools they tend to emerge en masse and head into structures where it's warmer, usually congregating on the interior of the sunniest wall while trying to get inside the wall. Yesterday was much, much cooler than the preceding week. It's the end of August. They were on the interior of the warmest, west-facing wall. Check, check, check. The only thing I didn't discover was what their exact range is, but I think the mystery is solved. Unless anyone else has a better explanation for me?

Thanks to google image search for the fly pictures.

Squirrel Appreciation

postcard available from
 http://oldmapsandprints.etsy.com 

This has been a bit of a stressful month so far. First we caught the plague at Comicon, then our (three year young) hot water heater went supernova and spewed water all over Gabriel's studio. Then, on the same day, we discovered that we needed a major plumbing repair in the yard. Clearly, things weren't looking up.

So it was a great relief to see this squirrel massage video. I swear, it turned my entire month around!

T-shirt available from
http://binarywinter.etsy.com

With that in mind, I thought maybe some squirrel appreciation might be in order.


Yes, squirrels can be jerks. I used to work with wild fox, ground, and grey squirrels, and I can assure you that, pound for pound, few animals inflict as much pain when they bite you.


Even in my current job as a zoo keeper I'm not immune from squirrel antics. Just last week one snuck into my food prep area while I was making dinner for (ironically) our squirrel monkeys. I guess none of the food was to his liking though, since he simply urinated on the celery before scampering off.

Does this make me dislike squirrels? Hardly! It does make me appreciate them for what they are though. Cute and cuddly? Not really, although you wouldn't know it from that video. Bad ass? You bet! Watch out world, here comes a squirrel! And me too, as soon as I get our house put back in order.

April is Frog Month!

Here at The Frog Bag Blog we love frogs. How much? So much that the whole darn blog is named after them! Not only the blog, but the etsy shop too! Sadly, I can't take credit for the month of April being "Frog Month" though. I'm not sure who did the leg work on that one, but I'm glad they did, since it gives me a chance to talk about these magnificent amphibians.

Believe it or not, frogs are among the most endangered animals

on the planet. They have made it through many previous extinction events (including the one that wiped out all of the non-avian dinosaurs) but will they survive humans? That remains to be seen.

So, in honor of Frog Month and our dampish frog friends, I thought I would highlight a couple of things we can do to help them out. First on the list?

Drink more tap water!

How does this help? Well, Americans alone drink somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 BILLION bottles of water a year. Most of these bottles are not even recycled. All that plastic requires a lot of oil to produce: enough to fuel a million cars for a year! And oil isn't the only thing wasted... three times more water is used in the production of each bottle than ends up inside. Most of what's inside is just processed tap water anyway, which you could do much more cheaply at home with a filter. Some "big box" brands even have higher levels of contaminates than are allowed in tap water!

So, where does this leave frogs? Well, processing oil into bottles and then transporting the bottles to shops around the country contributes tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere which in turns contributes to climate change. And we all know how much frogs hate climate change! Most are adapted to only live in very narrow ranges of temperature, so even a small shift can have dire consequences. In addition, using all that extra water depletes rivers, streams, lakes, and reservoirs. In other words, the very places that frogs call home.

You may be wondering "why care about frogs?" Aside from the fact that frogs are unique and beautiful, they are also the muppet-like face of many important ecosystems. Save the frogs, save the planet, save ourselves. Easy as 1-2-3! Well, maybe not that easy. But at least it's a place to start...

Special thanks to Save the Frogs! for use of their photos and some of the information contained above.

Wordless Wednesday Featuring Two Harris's Antelope Squirrels