One of the anacondas recently had surgery on its tail. Other than that, animals seem to be doing fine.
Work doesn't stop at the Philadelphia Zoo despite city shutdown
Work doesn't stop at the Philadelphia Zoo despite city shutdown
Philadelphia Zoo Philadelphia Zoo News 2020
- Thread starter CarLover
- Start date
Did the anaconda recover from surgery?
Hi Zoochatters:
I am new to zoochat. I would like to tell you guys some changes in the reptile house, my favorite part of the zoo.
1. A northern water snake is in the old cottonmouth exhibit. According to the reptile keeper, Sean, the cottonmouth is living behind the scenes.
2. The spotted turtle and forest cobra exhibits are empty, as when I last visited on March 1. They both passed away (they were both old, the cobra I recall being like 24, the turtle I have no idea of his age). The zoo used to have a female forest cobra as well, what happened to her?
3. Sailfin lizards and black tree monitors are behind the scenes. The sailfin lizards will go in the former forest cobra exhibit(it is being renovated for a new species in that exhibit). The black tree monitors will eventually go in their old habitat with the trancavore tortoise, but I don’t know when that will happen and why they are backstage.
4. The East African gaboon viper and eyelash vipers have moved to different facilities/zoos.
5. There is a Madagascar ground boa in the exhibit where the Dumerils ground boa lived for so many years before it died a while back. There was a Haitian anole, Haitian galliwasp, and a blue tounged skink in his exhibit for a while. The skink was nowhere to be found, do you know what happened to it? The galiwasp and anole are in the former eyelash viper exhibit.
6. As someone mentioned in another post, the emerald tree boas, blue poison dart frogs and yellow headed poison dart frogs are no longer on exhibit. The last emerald tree boa passed away. I remember seeing 2 of them on some visits, did the other one die too? The blue poison dart frog died and the yellow headed poison dart frogs moved to another facility.
7. Amanda, the female green anaconda is off exhibit for a non serious medical skin issue. As someone mentioned one of the anacondas had surgery on its tail. In the video it looked like Amanda was the one(we couldn’t really see the surgery well, it was on a small part of the tail). Angus, the male I remember is over 40(I remember it said his birth year was 1978, is he the oldest in the USA?)and Amanda is in her late 20s. They both seem quite old, with anacondas living 10 years wild and 30 in captivity. The oldest female anaconda in captivity, Annie from Johannesburg in Africa, is in her 30s.
8. The yellow rat snake moved one exhibit to the right. The animal that formerly lived in the snake’s old exhibit moved to a different facility.
9. The Chinese alligator and Bubba, the largest 500 pound male giant tortoise moved to different facilities/zoos.
10. Apparently there are now two mertens water monitors at the zoo, at least from what I have seen the last 2 visits.
Note: I knew all this before the zoo closed for covid-19.
I am new to zoochat. I would like to tell you guys some changes in the reptile house, my favorite part of the zoo.
1. A northern water snake is in the old cottonmouth exhibit. According to the reptile keeper, Sean, the cottonmouth is living behind the scenes.
2. The spotted turtle and forest cobra exhibits are empty, as when I last visited on March 1. They both passed away (they were both old, the cobra I recall being like 24, the turtle I have no idea of his age). The zoo used to have a female forest cobra as well, what happened to her?
3. Sailfin lizards and black tree monitors are behind the scenes. The sailfin lizards will go in the former forest cobra exhibit(it is being renovated for a new species in that exhibit). The black tree monitors will eventually go in their old habitat with the trancavore tortoise, but I don’t know when that will happen and why they are backstage.
4. The East African gaboon viper and eyelash vipers have moved to different facilities/zoos.
5. There is a Madagascar ground boa in the exhibit where the Dumerils ground boa lived for so many years before it died a while back. There was a Haitian anole, Haitian galliwasp, and a blue tounged skink in his exhibit for a while. The skink was nowhere to be found, do you know what happened to it? The galiwasp and anole are in the former eyelash viper exhibit.
6. As someone mentioned in another post, the emerald tree boas, blue poison dart frogs and yellow headed poison dart frogs are no longer on exhibit. The last emerald tree boa passed away. I remember seeing 2 of them on some visits, did the other one die too? The blue poison dart frog died and the yellow headed poison dart frogs moved to another facility.
7. Amanda, the female green anaconda is off exhibit for a non serious medical skin issue. As someone mentioned one of the anacondas had surgery on its tail. In the video it looked like Amanda was the one(we couldn’t really see the surgery well, it was on a small part of the tail). Angus, the male I remember is over 40(I remember it said his birth year was 1978, is he the oldest in the USA?)and Amanda is in her late 20s. They both seem quite old, with anacondas living 10 years wild and 30 in captivity. The oldest female anaconda in captivity, Annie from Johannesburg in Africa, is in her 30s.
8. The yellow rat snake moved one exhibit to the right. The animal that formerly lived in the snake’s old exhibit moved to a different facility.
9. The Chinese alligator and Bubba, the largest 500 pound male giant tortoise moved to different facilities/zoos.
10. Apparently there are now two mertens water monitors at the zoo, at least from what I have seen the last 2 visits.
Note: I knew all this before the zoo closed for covid-19.
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Thanks for all of the updates, sounds like a lot has been happening in that building! I'm not a big reptile fan so I'm a little surprised I'm sad about the emerald tree boa passing away, as well as the forest cobra. I'm excited for the sailfin lizards, though.
I also forgot to mention that the zoo only has one Pygmy marmoset left in the small mammal
house. He will be going to dallas when the weather is consistently warm, because they are social animals and his brother died in January. The zoo does not plan on getting any more Pygmy marmosets. Right now, I don’t know if he is still there, but I predict so as we still have some cooler days. I recommend you ask the zoo on the ask an expert page. If he is still there after the zoo reopens, you should go as soon as the zoo reopens to see him one last time.
house. He will be going to dallas when the weather is consistently warm, because they are social animals and his brother died in January. The zoo does not plan on getting any more Pygmy marmosets. Right now, I don’t know if he is still there, but I predict so as we still have some cooler days. I recommend you ask the zoo on the ask an expert page. If he is still there after the zoo reopens, you should go as soon as the zoo reopens to see him one last time.
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Questions
1. Any idea where the Chinese alligator or Bubba, the Aldabra giant tortoise, were sent out to?
2. How many giant tortoise now at Philadelphia (divided by Aldabra and Galapagos giant adults?
(In a video form 2015 they reported holding 8 adults alltogether and 3 younger (the latter being non-breeding age hatched Galapagos) and amongst the adults 2 are Galapagos giant tortoise females).
3. Is there now already a SSP for Aldabra giant tortoise or is it more or less still some monitoring being done by Tulsa Zoo?
Kifaru Bwana, according to the reptile keeper, Sean, the Chinese alligator went to Florida and Bubba moved to california. He did not specify which facility. You can ask the zoo on its ask an expert page.
I haven’t heard of any other giant tortoises moving out. Of all the adults, the zoo has two Galapagos, Mommy and Little Girl. Since Bubba left, now I think Mommy is the oldest animal. There are now five adult Aldabras, 1 male Grunt and 4 females Wilma, Betty, Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum. In the warmer months the three juvenile Galapagos, all unknown sex, are in bird valley. But the new Sebastopol geese are now in their exhibit and
I don’t know if they will go in there this summer. You can ask on the zoos ask an expert page. The giant tortoise exhibit won’t be the same without Bubba since he was the largest tortoise over 500 lbs! And now the tortoises won’t look as “giant” as they were before but still big.
The largest tortoise now is Grunt, who is small for a male weighing at a little over 300 pounds. Males average 500 pounds. Hopefully one day one of the juvenile Galapagos tortoises grows as big as Bubba.
I am not sure is there is a SSP for Aldabra giant tortoise.
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Any general observations on question 2 and 3?
Did the zoo breed the juvenile Galapagos tortoises or were they brought in from somewhere else? The zoo's two females are an odd (sub)species, porteri I believe.
~Thylo
~Thylo
No, Brownsville microphyes hatchlings.
@Thylo, you are on a learning curve there!
Brownsville used to hold an adult becki that bred with individuals at a private facility.
All hatchlings except one of this species died in their youngest years.
Nowadays, Gladys Porter Zoo concentrates only on a breeding group of Chelonoidis microphyes.
BTW: Out of all of the Galapagos tortoise species becki is probably one of the most numerous. Even though, part of the population seems to have become admixed with hoodensis, elephantopus and abingdoni et al. (which is only true for one of the two ranges for becki on northern Isabela and the wonderful historical whaling industry's doing).
When I visited Brownsville in 2018 they had hatchlings labeled as becki as well as adult microphyes.
~Thylo
No, the keeper did not specify which facilities.
The zoo is asking the public to name the sloth bear cub.
The names provided are:
Keematee- "Precious"
Rahi- "Bringer of Spring" or "traveler"
Kelani- "The Heavens"
Kali- "Terrific"
Judging by the names, I'm guessing the cub is female since these names don't seem gender-neutral or masculine. All the names are Hindi words.
The names provided are:
Keematee- "Precious"
Rahi- "Bringer of Spring" or "traveler"
Kelani- "The Heavens"
Kali- "Terrific"
Judging by the names, I'm guessing the cub is female since these names don't seem gender-neutral or masculine. All the names are Hindi words.
This must be their first breeding then!!!