Behind the scenes on a typical Monday at Reptiles Alive.

Today is feeding day for the snakes.  What, they only get fed on Mondays?!

the menu

That’s right.  Put your hand on your neck.  Does it feel warm?  Oh good, that means you are still alive.  Humans are endothermic that means that we have a heater inside our body to keep us a nice warm 98.6 degrees F.  What powers that heater is the food you must eat every day.

Reptiles are ectothermic or exothermic meaning “outside temperature.”  They are the same temperature inside their body as the temperature outside their body.  That means they don’t burn much food to make heat energy.  That is why we must eat much more than reptiles do.

Some of the snakes don’t even eat every week!  One snake, the Kenya Sand Boa, often goes nine months in the wild without eating!

Lot’s of people ask us what we feed our carnivores.

fresh ratcicles

Since snakes aren’t to excited about the culinary delights of dog food or hot dogs, we have to resort to a more wholesome approach to their diet; ratcicles!  These are humanely killed rats from a zoo food supply company are shipped frozen.  We defrost them in warm water and its lunch time!

The baby alligator sure looks excited about his lunch.

Check out the video of the alligator and snapping turtle eating on the Reptiles Alive Facebook Page and become our fan!

Leopard Gecko

Eublepharis macularis

Show Name: “Larry”

Hisssstory: Larry came to live at Reptiles Alive in April of 2004.  He was already about 5 years old when his owner decided he didn’t want a gecko as a pet anymore.

Zoo Diet: Larry loves crickets and meal worms.

Natural Diet: In the wild, leopard geckos will eat just about any moving creature that is smaller than themselves, including: insects, spiders, snails, and scorpions.

Range: Northwestern Pakistan, Afghanistan, and India.

Habitat: Leopard geckos live in some of the hottest, driest deserts on earth, so they spend much of their time in cool underground burrows.

Size: Leopard geckos can grow 6 to 8 inches long.

Lifespan: Leopard geckos can live 10-20 years or more.

Reproduction: Mating takes place during the rainy season. A female will lay two eggs at a time, but can lay several clutches a year. She can even store sperm from one mating for later.

Cool Facts: Leopard geckos store fat in their tail so they can survive for months without food or water.  Camels, another desert creature that stores fat (in their hump), have a similar survival strategy.

Learn about creature camouflage and color an animal to match its surroundings.

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!

Five Lined Skink 1-7-09 - First rescue of 2009!

On Wednesday, January 7, Joanne Fugito found a nearly frozen five-lined skink lizard in her driveway. Lucky for the lizard, Joanne knew just what to do since she is a vet tech at Great Falls Animal Hospital – a veterinary clinic that works with Reptiles Alive and other wildlife rehabilitators to save injured wildlife.

After rescuing the skink from the freezing cold driveway, she did some research and set up a temporary enclosure for it inside of her house. She then called Reptiles Alive and brought the lizard right over. It is the first wildlife rescue we have received in 2009.

The skink appeared healthy, but it could not be released into the bitter January cold. So I set up a warm home with plenty of hiding places for it to live until spring, when we will release it back to its home in Joanne’s front yard.

The heavy rains the day before probably washed the skink out of its hibernation burrow. If the temperature had been 55 or above, I would told Joanne to release the lizard, but the cold air paralyzed the reptile and would have killed the lizard very quickly. After being kept indoors for more than 24 hours, the skink would probably not be able to re-acclimate to going back outside in the winter, so we will wait until April to release it.

It may be a bit early in the year for some good snake herping, but not too early for a Conference! We were invited to be part of the education panel at the Box Turtle Conservation Workshop in Ashboro, North Carolina. It was hosted by the fantastic North Carolina Zoo. We met several wonderful scientists, naturalists, government workers, and zookeepers.

The highlight of the trip ended up being the zoo itself! We received an amazing behind the scenes tour with one of the river habitat zookeepers. Here is Mark and Caroline hanging out at the Sonoran desert exhibit.

Don’t they look like they are having fun?

I was impressed with how much the exhibit looked like the Sonora Desert. It reminded me of my southwest home.

This hill is loaded with yucca, cholla (pronounced choy- yah), prickly pear, and barrel cactus.

How cool!

Just goes to show you the amazing things you can grow in a bubble.

The most impressive animal in the desert exhibit was the gorgeous and obviously very happy Gila Monster (pronounced Hee-lah.) Just look at the smile on this guys face. The Gila Monster is one of two venomous lizards in the world. They have venom glands in their jaw and grooved teeth for the venom to flow along. Gilas have been known to eat eggs, birds, rodents, and even snakes.

I just couldn’t get enough of all the amazing and healthy animals found in this exhibit.

I was most impressed by the native animals of North Carolina exhibit. The otters were definetly the cutest.

Here is an old girl lifting her head up to say hi. She recognized our zookeeper guide, Mark and came out of the water to see what was going on.

Behind the riverside exhibit was a brightly colored coral snake. Check out the lovely colors on this guy. The keepers told us this guy was actually from the zoo property! Good thing he is safe in here now, there are elephants out there little guy!

If you are in the North Carolina area, you must check out the zoo. i would visit just for the impressive stream side exhibit. The display is amazingly executed. It looks just like someone took a saw and sliced a cross section of a stream and its banks and encased it in glass. The exhibit had fish and turtles swimming in the water, water moccasins, kingsnakes, birds, frogs, toads, copperheads, ratsnakes, and more! To service this impressive exhibit, you have to climb up and down these scary stairs.

Yikes those things are steep!

I was amazed to find they had a hellbender in the back. Sorry folks, no picture as they all came out blurry. The outdoor Carolina exhibits were very nice too. Check out the awesome picture I got of the puma. Caroline and I must have spent a good amount of time watching these big cats chase each other around and up trees!

He was so close!

The best part of the tour came when Mark took us in the forested area to look for salamanders and frogs. It was doubtful this time of year to find many snakes. The zoo sits on several acres of untouched woodland and it is filled with may awesome native animals.

Say Hello to Mr. Amphibian! We found many egg masses of salamanders and frogs in the scattered vernal pools back there.

It is a beautiful zoo. Thanks for the tour Mark!

Back at the hotel room, it wasn’t so beautiful. Check out what happened to one of our sodas in the fridge.

Uh OH!

Looks like the hotel staff gets an extra tip.

This is the nice thing about being on vacation I suppose. I felt a bit guilty for leaving the mess, but the cleaning crew is going to be better equipped to deal with it. We left a nice note on the fridge informing them it was just soda, really!

This is in an undisclosed location in George Washington National Forest in Virginia. I have chosen to keep this place a secret to protect the Jefferson’s Salamander found here.

These beautiful salamanders are out laying eggs fairly early in the year. Out we went on a chilly March morning in search of this elusive blue spotted little guy.

First thing I found in a freezing little creek, was this thing.

If you can identify it, I would be interested. In any case I do not think this is the adult form of whatever it is. We continued carfully turning over logs and rocks along the banks of the creek. We were very careful to gently place the overturned objects into the exact same position they were in before. Logs have tiny little micro-ecosystems underneath. You do not want to destroy them, so always put them back exactly as you found them.

My feet were freezing from stepping in cold water and I spent much of my time stamping my feet. I felt the burning sensation of circulation returning zapping up my legs and through my toes.

Caroline quickly jumps up and dashes towards a log and promptly sticks her head next to a small hole on the side of the rotten dead tree. I imagined a cartoon claw popping out and pinching her on the nose. “Why was she so excited?” There is no way she can see what just went into that thing!

Caroline must have eagle eyes. She found exactly what we came out to find! To make it more amazing he actually decided to come out of his shallow hiding place and make a break for it under some nearby leaves! I’m sure glad humans have thumbs. I made quick work of moving the leaves off of him and snapping a quick picture before leaving him be.

How cool is that?

We ended our short trip with a view of another gorgeous salamander. Say hello to this striking red-backed salamander!