Pantherophis alleghaniensis (formerly Elaphe obsoleta obsoleta)

Reptiles Alive Name: “Rachel”

Hisssstory: Rachel was a professor’s pet at Marymount University in Arlington VA.  He donated Rachel to Reptiles Alive in October 2009.

RA Diet: Rachel likes to eat frozen mice and rats that are thawed and warmed before she eats them.

Natural Diet: Rat snakes dine on eggs, small mammals, birds, and lizards.

Range: Eastern rat snakes are found in the eastern United States from New York to Florida and west to the Great Plains.

Habitat: Rat snakes live in forests, farmland, swamps, and even in buildings and houses!

Size: Eastern rat snakes grow 4 – 6 feet long, the record is a giant 8 feet 4 inch snake.  In many parts of their range, they are the largest snake species.

Lifespan: Rat snakes can live 20 years or more.

Reproduction: Eastern rat snakes breed April-June. Females lay 5-30 eggs that hatch in about 90 days, usually around September or October.

Conservation: Rat snakes are harmless to humans and highly beneficial to us because of all the rats, mice, and other rodents they consume.  They also serve as food to other animals including eagles and hawks.   Like all animals, snakes play an important role in the health of the environment.  If you see a snake, please leave it alone.

Cool Facts: There are many myths and misunderstandings with rat snakes.  Baby rat snakes are often confused with the venomous copperhead snake because they have a pattern of squares and diamonds down their back that slowly fades to black as they get bigger.  Rat snakes also rattle their tails when they are frightened, and flatten their head into a triangle shape.  Due to these two traits, there is a myth that rat snakes can mate with copperheads and rattle snakes to produce venomous hybrid offspring.  It is actually physically impossible for rat snakes to mate with either copperheads or rattle snakes.  Snake identification can be tricky – even for snake experts.  It is always a good idea to leave snakes alone.

Baby Eastern Rat Snake

A tale of a Reptiles Alive trip

That started from our headquarters

Aboard our reptile van – ship.

Sycamore Island in the Potomac River

The mate was a mighty nature photography man,

The skipper brave with snakes.

2 passengers + 8 live animals set sail that day

To perform a 1 hour reptile show, a 1 hour show.

Our Animals Aboard Ferry Boat to Sycamore Island

The weather started getting rough,

The pollen was really bad and wind knocked trees on the ground,

If not for the courage of the fearless RA crew

The show would not go on, the show would not go on.

Caroline on Sycamore Island

The ship set ground on the shore of this charted Potomac River isle

With Caroline

Jon Kerr too

The Ferry boatman, his name is Joe

The animal show stars

The black rat snake and the rest

Here on Sycamore Isle.

Ferry Boat Captain Joe

So this is the tale of the show we performed

It was on Saturday May 8

We had the best of times,

Even though loading was a truly uphill climb.

One LONG, TOUGH Load In for a Show

The first mate and the Skipper too

Did their very best,

To perform a fantastic live animal show

In the Potomac River island nest.

Inside the Sycamore Island Canoe Clubhouse

There were phones and lights, but no motor cars,

Lots of luxuries,

Not really like Robinson Crusoe,

Not exactly as primitive as can be.

Caroline with Pink the Corn Snake

So join us here each week my freinds,

You’re sure to get a smile,

From all the people and animals,

Here at Reptiles Alive!

]]> http://reptilesalive.com/news/2010/05/12/an-island-tale/feed/ 3 http://reptilesalive.com/news/2010/03/26/pocomoke-city-discovers-reptiles-alive/ http://reptilesalive.com/news/2010/03/26/pocomoke-city-discovers-reptiles-alive/#comments Fri, 26 Mar 2010 12:23:51 +0000 reptilesalive http://reptilesalive.com/news/?p=873

Last Saturday morning, March 20th, I packed up the Reptiles Alive van full of great animals including Sunshine the python, Logan the Nile monitor lizard, and B.A. the alligator.  We  drove across the Chesapeake Bay down to Pocomoke City, MD – home to the Delmarva Discovery Center.

Pocomoke is a historic Eastern Shore town located right on the Pocomoke River. Last year, the awesome new Delmarva Discovery Center (DDC) opened to the public. The DDC features exhibits that tell the story of the Delmarva’s natural and cultural history.

As we set up and got ready, we had a huge crowd excitedly waiting to see the first show.

We started each of the three shows that day with a couple of animals native to the Eastern Shore: Lucky our black rat snake and T Rex the snapping turtle.

Then we featured an animal from the other side of our planet: the Australian blue tongue skink, Mystique. Next, we learned why we should all be really grateful there are no mommy pizzas when we met Logan the Nile monitor lizard.

The alligator B.A. (which stands for “Bad Attitude” helped us learn alligator love songs. Last but definitely not least, we met Sunshine, our albino Burmese python. The audience, as usual, went wild for Sunshine.

Big thanks go to the Delmarva Discovery Center for hosting this fun reptile festival. We are hoping to make this an annual event, so start planning your trip to Pocomoke City for next year.

In September, the number of shows we do becomes much more reasonable.  Fall festivals and birthday parties still fill our weekends, and scout meetings eat up our nights, but the weekday school programs are just getting started, so we have time during the day to catch up on all the office work we couldn’t get to during the summer.

As soon as the school year starts, our phone starts ringing and our email inbox fills with requests for school assemblies, classroom visits, and after school classes.  Since we work as animal keepers in addition to working in the office, there are many times that the phone starts ringing right when we are opening the door to a large python or getting ready to feed an alligator – YIKES.  There are even times when we answer the phone and take an animal with us, so while we are talking to you, we might have a snake in our other hand.

Most people only think about the shows they see us perform, but a lot of work goes on “behind the scenes” to get ready for your show.  And don’t worry – we will be sure that none of the animals eat the paperwork for your booking.

Corucia zebrata

Show Name: “Mortimer”

Hissstory: Mortimer belonged to a former Reptiles Alive animal keeper who left for another job and left Morty here  in May 2002.

Zoo Diet: Greens, vegetables, and fruit.

Natural Diet: New leaves, epiphytes, blossoms, and fruit.

Range: Solomon Islands near Papua New Guinea and Australia.

Habitat: The canopy of old-growth tropical rainforest.

Size: Prehensile tailed skinks are one of the largest skink species in the world!  They can grow 18-24 inches long, most of which is tail.

Lifespan: Prehensile tailed skinks can live over 25 years.

Reproduction: Unlike most lizards, prehensile tailed skinks bear live young and even care for their babies!  They become very protective of the one or two large baby skinks for about a year after giving birth.

Conservation: Prehensile tailed skinks are sometimes eaten by indigenous people, but their biggest problems are the pet trade and habitat destruction.  They are now listed as CITES Appendix II and are  no longer legally imported for the pet trade.

Cool Facts: Prehensile tailed skinks are nocturnal – they come out at night and sleep in the day.  Because of their funny faces and nightime habits, they are sometimes referred to as “Island Gnomes” or ghosts, by the people who live in the Solomon Islands.

Gecko gecko

Show Name: Freddy “Boom Boom” Cannon

Hissstory: We received Freddy as an unwanted pet on April 29, 2005.

Zoo Diet: Crickets, mealworms, earthworms, roaches, and dead mice.

Natural Diet: Anything that moves and is smaller than the gecko.  Tokays will eat birds, snakes, other lizards, insects, frogs – you name and they will eat it!

Range: Tokay geckos naturally occur in Southeast Asia and Malaysia, but they have been Introduced in Florida, Hawaii and many other tropical places around the world.

Habitat: The understory and canopy of tropical rainforests. They can also be found living in cities and even inside of homes in tropical areas.

Size: Tokays can grow to 8 – 10 inches – that is a BIG gecko!

Reproduction: Tokays lay 2-3 sticky eggs in the crevices of tree bark and rocks.

Lifespan: Can live over 50 years.

Conservation: Tokay geckos are important in controlling pests such as cockroaches and locusts.  However, they can also eat small birds, mammals, frogs, and other reptiles, which makes them a potentially damaging invasive species in locations where they have been introduced – such as Hawaii.

Cool Facts: Tokay geckos get their name from the loud “Tow-kay” call they make. Like most geckos, Tokays can walk vertically or even upside down on nearly any surface,  including glass.   They do this by using microscopic scales in the shape of hooks on the bottom of their feet. These scales grab on to microscopic imperfections found on every surface. Scientists are studying gecko feet in order to develop super strong tape, and maybe even gloves and shoes you could wear to walk up a wall.  Just like Spider-man – or GECKO MAN!

Inspire your students to create awesome art from sound.

Materials

Animal sounds
markers
crayons
paper

First, play some animal sounds for your class. Many animal sounds can be found on the internet. Have a class discussion about the sounds. How does each sound make you feel? What do you think the animal is trying to say? How do you think the animal feels? Discuss what you think the sounds might look like if you could see them.

1. Write in big letters with a big marker a sound on a piece of paper. One for each student. Sounds might be ROAR, CHIRP, EEEEEEEP, SQUAAAAACK, SSSSSSSSSSS, etc. Be creative.

2. Have each student think about the sound and color or draw what they think the sound looks like on their paper.

Grades: Prek-3

Description

Many animals use camouflage in order to blend in to their surroundings.  The animals can hide from predators (animals that want to eat them) and hide from prey (animals they want to eat for dinner!)

Many animals are the same color as their surroundings. If an animal lives in the desert, it might be a brown color that matches the color of the sand.  Animals that live in trees may be green or brown to match with the bark of the trees or the leaves on them.

Can you think of some animals that can blend in really well?  A good example is a box turtle.  They have a dark shell with an orange pattern on it.  This helps the box turtle hide in the leaves that had fallen from trees in the fall. Show students pictures of animals blending in with their surroundings and talk about them.

Materials

Chameleon picture – one for each student
Photos of habitats – one for each student

Activity

Give each student a habitat picture and chameleon coloring page.

Instruct the students to color the chameleon so that it will blend in with the habitat picture they have.  (You may want to help younger children identify and choose crayon colors to match those in the habitat picture.)

After the students have finished coloring the chameleons.

Cut out the chameleon and glue or tape it to the habitat picture.

Hang up on the wall for everyone to admire!

Subject – Science, Art

Grade Level – 4-6

Skills Used:

Predicting; Collecting, Recording and Interpreting Data; Identifying and Controlling Variables; Defining Operationally

Key Vocabulary:

Food Chain, Food Web

Lesson Time:

30 minutes

Conceptual Objective:

Students will understand that food chains overlap to form a web of multiple energy paths.

Process Objective:

Students will create a model of a food web.

Materials

* construction paper
* markers
* scissors
* bulletin boards
* pushpins
* tape
* string
* food web handout – click to download

Procedure

1. Introduce and explain the terms ‘food chain’ and ‘food web’ to students.

2. View, explain, and answer questions about an example food web.

3. Pass out handouts and explain how the information is set up on the chart.

4. Put children into groups of five, giving each group the necessary supplies.

5. Instruct children to draw and label all of the different woodland organisms listed. Also draw a picture of the sun. Cut out drawings and attach them to bulletin boards with pushpins. Leave space between the drawings.

6. Students should tape one end of the piece of string to any one of the drawings. Using the table, connect the other end of the string to the proper organism.

7. Students should draw and cut out an arrow, taping it on the string to indicate in which direction the energy is flowing.

8. Students should repeat these steps to connect all of the organisms.

9. Announce clean-up time, and display finished food webs around the room.

Lecture

What is the food chain?

Energy flows through an ecosystem as one animal eats another animal or plant. A food chain shows “who eats who” in an ecosystem.

For example:

An owl – eats a mouse who – eats a beetle who – eats leaves.

Each part of the food chain has a name:

Plants make (produce) their own food using water, sunlight and carbon dioxide (photosynthesis). Plant start the food chain. There are more plants than any other living thing because they are the bottom of the food chain. They provide the energy for everything else. They are the PRODUCERS.

The animals (insects, mice, chipmunks, squirrels, rabbits, deer) that mostly eat plants are called the herbivores. There are fewer herbivores than there are plants because each herbivore needs a lot of plant matter to live. Herbivores feed directly on the producers. They are the PRIMARY CONSUMERS.

Animals (spiders, birds, snakes) who eat the primary consumers (herbivores) are the SECONDARY CONSUMERS. There are fewer secondary consumers than there are primary consumers because each secondary consumers needs to eat a lot of primary consumers to live.

Animals (fox, coyotes, eagles, owls) who eat the 1st & 2nd consumers are carnivores (they eat meat). They are the TERTIARY CONSUMERS. There are fewer tertiary consumers than there are secondary consumers because each tertiary consumers needs to eat a lot of secondary consumers to live. Because there are fewer animals as you move up the food chain, it is really a food pyramid with the big carniores needing to eat the most and so being the rarest of the animal kingdom.

Because animals eat so many things, the food chain has many overlapping parts, so is really a FOOD WEB.

Last but not least, the DECOMPOSERS eat and so recycle dead animals and plants (mushrooms, fungi, insects, bacteria). They are then consumed themselves by other parts of the food web so nothing is wasted.

Something to think about:

In a food web, if an important animal is taken out, and there are no other animals to take its place, it can affect all the other animals in the food web. This animal is called a KEYSTONE SPECIES.

An example of this is the American alligator. Thirty years ago it was hunted so much in the everglades that it all but disappeared. What people didn’t realize was that the American alligator’s main food is the gar, a big everglade fish. The gar in turn eats a lot of the same fish people like (referred to as game fish).

When the American alligator disappeared, the gar (with no other predator) became very plentiful. All the extra gar ate all the game fish. Suddenly fisherman noticed that all the game fish had disappeared and there were gar everywhere.

The food web was out of balance. Once the American alligator was protected from hunting, its numbers rose quickly. In turn the number of gar decreased. Soon the game fish returned. The balance was restored.

Evaluation

1. Did students make and use a model that allowed them to make inferences about food chains? Assess the neatness and the accuracy of the food webs.

Troubleshooting

1. Students may argue about who will do what in the group. If this happens, the teacher should assign roles to students.

“edu-tainment” event.

the BULL RUN OBSERVER March 6, 2009
by GRETCHEN L.H. O’BRIEN

The visitors to Linton Hall School in Bristow were rather cold to the students.  They didn’t shake hands or even make eye contact. Of course, they were reptiles.

The students – kindergartners to eighth-graders didn’t care that the creatures weren’t into shaking their hands.  In fact, some of the students looked relieved to be sitting more than a few feet from the reptilian visitors.

When the energetic young woman from the zoo on wheels started talking to the students, she kept their attention well-no small feat, when students range from ages 5 to 13.  However, she told them she brought “some of the best” reptiles for the youngsters to see.

Vader the [Bull]snake started out the show to many ooohs and aaaahhhs from the crowd.  Vader, the presenter told the children, was similar to them in at least two ways: snakes and people both are vertebrates with backbones and snakes’ skin is made of a similar protein; keratin.  Human hair and fingernails have a great deal of keratin in them, she noted.

The students sat raptly for the full 45 – minute program as the presenter brought out reptile after reptile.  However, she did throw in one amphibian: Jeremiah, who was a bullfrog and was a very good friend of the presenter’s. The frog, she said, did have wet and slimy skin, which is much different from the smooth skin of snakes and many other reptiles.

It was the bearded dragon that breathed fiery life into the students.  They got even more excited about seeing and discussing reptiles and human similarities.

But when Janice the Leopard Tortoise looked as if she were going to walk off the table, the younger audience members erupted with excited comments.  There were concerned for her safety.
Safety was obviously important to the presenter: she made sure the students kept their distance from the reptiles.  The students definitely complied: they sat at attention as the creatures that came out of the plastic crates got bigger and bigger.

The eyes and responses of the older students got bigger in tandem with the animals.  Dean Martin, the alligator, didn’t dance, but he definitely entertained the crowd.

It was Sunshine the albino Burmese Python that brought down the house and acted as the Reptiles Alive grand finale for this show.  The 12-foot snake roped across the table at the front of the school’s gym.  The middle-schoolers were definitely wowed by the snake, who simply wanted to slither back into her crate.

Christina Ashworth, 13, was one of those who thought Sunshine was the brightest spot in the show.  Christina’s favorite animal is the snake, so she adored seeing the huge snake at her school.
Her brothers, Thomas, 7, and Bobby, 10, also rated Sunshine as the star attraction at the show.  Thomas like the crocodile too.  Bobby said he’s not too afraid of snakes.

The presenter repeatedly noted that many people are afraid of sakes but reminded the audience members that snakes are very afraid of people.

Jerry Barrett, director of development, was impressed with how well the Reptiles Alive presenter wove facts and teachable moments into her presentation to the students.  He  was thrilled the show combined fun with “a good educational value.” He enjoyed it as well and was also impressed by Sunshine the albino Burmese Python.
The python and other creatures held all the children’s attention, which was what Libby Robinson, who as head of the school’s parent guild helped plan the presentation, had hoped.  Robinson thought the show was terrific.

Elizabeth Poole, Linton Hall principal, agreed the show was terrific.  She was glad to see all her students’ enthralled by the show that ended with an appropriate, if corny, “Ssssssssssssseee you later alligator.”