Hello from California!

Xenarthra

Xenarthra

Well-Known Member
5+ year member
Hey folks, nice to meet you! I found the forums a few months ago and lurked extensively, but I've finally gotten around to making an account. I've been a huge animal + zoo fan since I was a kid, so finding a community like this was awesome.

I'm 28 and have an education/work background in wildlife biology and botany, with a lot of it agriculture adjacent. I'm from the southern end of CA's Central Valley, and Fresno Chaffee Zoo has been my home zoo since I was a toddler. I haven't done much out of state traveling, so my selection has been limited to CA, but thankfully there's quite a bit of zoo variety in a state this large. Still haven't made it to San Diego though, fingers crossed for the future.

For animal-related hobbies, I do a fair bit of birdwatching, and have been keeping inverts since I was a teen. Currently I have a small posse of nine tarantula species and two hissing cockroach species, with a few more on my wishlist for the future. Cooking, gardening, reading, ttrpgs, etc. all keep me pretty busy as well!

Thanks for reading, looking forward to chatting with y'all :)
 
Thanks for the welcome everyone!

Jungle Man said:
Welcome to Zoochat!! What species of Tarantulas do you keep?
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Currently I have:
  • 0.1 Avicularia avicularia
  • 0.0.2 Caribena versicolor
  • 0.0.1 Brachypelma boehmei
  • 0.1 Brachypelma emilia
  • 0.0.1 Brachypelma hamorii
  • 0.1 Chromatopelma cyanopubescens
  • 0.1 Grammostola pulchripes
  • 1.0 Tliltocatl albopilosum
  • 0.2 Tliltocatl vagans
My collection has dwindled a bit due to my critters finally aging out, as it was skewed towards arboreals in Avicularia, Caribena, and Ybyrapora that don't live as long as their terrestrial kin. A. juruensis and minatrix, as well as Y. diversipes were some of my prior faves I'd love to get again.

Here's one of my recently molted C. veriscolor spiderlings, Andromeda, looking great!
C. versicolor.jpg
 

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Xenarthra said:
Thanks for the welcome everyone!



Currently I have:
  • 0.1 Avicularia avicularia
  • 0.0.2 Caribena versicolor
  • 0.0.1 Brachypelma boehmei
  • 0.1 Brachypelma emilia
  • 0.0.1 Brachypelma hamorii
  • 0.1 Chromatopelma cyanopubescens
  • 0.1 Grammostola pulchripes
  • 1.0 Tliltocatl albopilosum
  • 0.2 Tliltocatl vagans
My collection has dwindled a bit due to my critters finally aging out, as it was skewed towards arboreals in Avicularia, Caribena, and Ybyrapora that don't live as long as their terrestrial kin. A. juruensis and minatrix, as well as Y. diversipes were some of my prior faves I'd love to get again.

Here's one of my recently molted C. veriscolor spiderlings, Andromeda, looking great!
View attachment 443077
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Amazing!! That Tarantula looks pretty good.
 
Welcome, fellow California Zoochatter. The Fresno Zoo is one of my favorite zoos and until the virus siege I enjoyed visiting it a few times a year while traveling through the valley. It has been fun watching it transform into a first class zoo. Have they started work on the new Asia exhibit area yet?

You probably don't remember when the current anteater exhibit was a gorilla exhibit.
 
Welcome to Zoochat! As @DavidBrown already said it is great to have another fellow Californian on the forums. Fresno Chafee zoo is probably one of the best zoos in the state and I hope to visit it once again when the new Asian exhibit is up.
 
DavidBrown said:
Welcome, fellow California Zoochatter. The Fresno Zoo is one of my favorite zoos and until the virus siege I enjoyed visiting it a few times a year while traveling through the valley. It has been fun watching it transform into a first class zoo. Have they started work on the new Asia exhibit area yet?

You probably don't remember when the current anteater exhibit was a gorilla exhibit.
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While lurking here I found some photo comments (maybe from you, actually?) mentioning the gorillas, and yeah I had no idea, I think I missed them by a few years. I saw the chimpanzees a several times before they were phased out, but to be honest even that's a blurred childhood memory. I'm glad they got out of that grotto though!

Last time I was there was fall 2019, and from what I recall they were still setting up the groundwork/utilities/staff buildings for Kingdoms of Asia around the flamingos and central aviaries. I've been looking forward to this update for years, as the tigers getting an upgrade in space and complexity will be fantastic, plus that ex-giraffe + hoofstock exhibit has been sitting untouched for a while now and is a nice chunk of space for the future construction.
 
TheEthiopianWolf03 said:
Welcome to Zoochat! As @DavidBrown already said it is great to have another fellow Californian on the forums. Fresno Chafee zoo is probably one of the best zoos in the state and I hope to visit it once again when the new Asian exhibit is up.
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I've spent most of my life (with the exception of college) living in Merced and Tulare county, so Fresno has been the go-to zoo destination. Seeing the changes over the years has been super exciting, I'm glad that there's other folks out there as invested in it as I am :)

ZooBinh said:
Hey, welcome to ZooChat! I like cooking as well, and, I totally didn't get shock from seeing that tarantula image, albeit they are cool creatures! :p :confused:
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Ah! I'm so sorry. I've been spoiled by a lot of my social circle being bug people and I completely forget that that's... very much not the default for most people. Lol. If I can I'll edit the post so it's a thumbnail picture, to spare the folks checking the thread who don't dig spiders.
 
Xenarthra said:
Ah! I'm so sorry. I've been spoiled by a lot of my social circle being bug people and I completely forget that that's... very much not the default for most people. Lol. If I can I'll edit the post so it's a thumbnail picture, to spare the folks checking the thread who don't dig spiders.
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No, no, you're fine! I like inverts, but still have arachnophobia ahaha!
 
Hipporex said:
Welcome to Zoochat! I'd love to make it to Fresno Zoo someday, I've heard great things about it.
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If you ever get the chance, definitely do so! It's grown by leaps and bounds over the years and is a real standout destination in Fresno. On my end, I'd love to get up to Sacramento Zoo again, the last time I was there was 6, maybe 7 years ago and seeing the okapi exhibit would be cool. It's your home zoo, yeah? While doing my quarantine lurking a while back I spotted your maps of the reptile house and they sent me down nostalgia lane; I got a behind the scenes tour for my birthday back in 2004 and saw some neat critters.
 
Xenarthra said:
If you ever get the chance, definitely do so! It's grown by leaps and bounds over the years and is a real standout destination in Fresno. On my end, I'd love to get up to Sacramento Zoo again, the last time I was there was 6, maybe 7 years ago and seeing the okapi exhibit would be cool. It's your home zoo, yeah? While doing my quarantine lurking a while back I spotted your maps of the reptile house and they sent me down nostalgia lane; I got a behind the scenes tour for my birthday back in 2004 and saw some neat critters.
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Yep, Sacramento is my home zoo. It has it's problems but I sure love it. I'm jealous you've seen behind-the-scenes.
 
Xenarthra said:
I've spent most of my life (with the exception of college) living in Merced and Tulare county, so Fresno has been the go-to zoo destination. Seeing the changes over the years has been super exciting, I'm glad that there's other folks out there as invested in it as I am :)
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How is the Applegate Park Zoo in Merced doing these days? I visited it once back in the 1990s. they had a cage full of capuchins, some black bears, a kangaroo rat, and some other native species in old cages. Have they been able to modernize the zoo at all?
 
Hipporex said:
Yep, Sacramento is my home zoo. It has it's problems but I sure love it. I'm jealous you've seen behind-the-scenes.
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I was a shy twelve-year-old at the time, so I might not have gotten as much out of it as I could have, but the reptile house keeper who led the tour was really enthusiastic and made it a great experience. I have a fairly clear memory of him finding out I knew what caecilians were, getting really jazzed about that, and taking me into a side room to show me an off-exhibit species they were attempting to breed at the time.
 
DavidBrown said:
How is the Applegate Park Zoo in Merced doing these days? I visited it once back in the 1990s. they had a cage full of capuchins, some black bears, a kangaroo rat, and some other native species in old cages. Have they been able to modernize the zoo at all?
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Oh gosh, hmm. Last time I went to Applegate Zoo was 2008-ish, and I've seen more recent pictures from acquaintances who've taken their kids there. Not much modernization at all, to be frank. They did construction in either the late 90's or early 2000's that added enlarged aviaries for their raptors, and I believe they did some upgrades for the petting zoos after that. There's a singular black bear in the microscopic concrete cage, and coyote(s) in an expanded cage that used to hold their elderly mountain lion.

I did "zoo camp" there in elementary school and my mom became acquainted with the woman who managed the place. Talked with her a bit, as much as a kid can, and at the time her dream was to obtain pronghorn and a few other native CA fauna. I don't think they ever managed it, likely due to no funds for modernizing and being stretched super thin as it is.
 
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