The Urban Pantheist

Pet place is where the animals used for education programs are kept. It's a strange building, originally designed to be a small concessions kiosk. The hood and backsplash plate for the grill are still in there, but all the appliances are gone. It's kind of weirdly in the middle of all the Children's Zoo exhibits, but it's not designed to be an exhibit itself. If you press against the windows you can see chinchillas, or Madagascar cockroaches, or maybe a snake or a lizard. A big male cockatoo named Crystal will interact with you through the window, putting his crest up and croaking "Hi Crystal!"

The service yard as seen through a screen door.

The hippo and vulture exhibit in the tropical forest building, with visiting ibis.

A surprisingly woodsy view out my office window.

Pygmy Hippopotamus Hexaprotodon liberiensis

The pygmy hippopotamus is about a fifth of the mass of its huge cousin, the Nile hippo. A pygmy hippo is about the size of a small pig, on the average about 500 pounds. Pygmy hippos spend far less time in the water compared to Nile hippos, instead deftly and quietly moving through dense rainforests, feeding on fallen fruit and other vegetation. Also unlike Niles, pygmy hippos are solitary, coming together only to mate. They leave messages for one another by defecating and rapidly wagging their tails to disperse the fecal matter. Pygmy hippos are found in a relatively small range of jungle habitat in western Africa, the largest amount concentrated in Liberia. They are preyed upon by leopards and humans.

This is Cleopatra, a fifteen year old pygmy hippo who comes from the Toronto zoo. She is on loan to Zoo New England, and is on exhibit in the Tropical Forest building.

( pics from Toronto )

On this day in 365 Urban Species: Greenhouse slug.

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On this day in 365 Urban Species: Matrimony vine

On this day in 365 Urban Species: Oak apple gall wasp.

Masai Giraffe Giraffa camelopardalis tippelskirchi

Giraffes are among the most bizarre of all mammals and the most familiar of all zoo animals. They are the tallest mammals (male Masai giraffes can be 18 feet tall) with extremely long legs and grotesquely long necks, adaptations for feeding at treetops. Their long black tongues grasp twigs, stripping acacia leaves from their thorny branches. Whole branches can be torn off and the giraffe's powerful molars can grind the acacia thorns up. Like most large mammals, giraffes are generally diminishing in population, though they suffer less from competition with domestic animals than some other African wildlife. This may be because domestic livestock forages on much lower growing plants.

This individual is Jana, "the most genetically valuable female Masai giraffe in North America." Currently, the giraffe barn is being renovated, and it is always possible for the Jana and her mate Beau to be on exhibit. When they are out, they are with the Grevy's Zebras, at Franklin Park Zoo.

On this day in 365 urban species: Great golden digger wasp. This post has a number of anonymous comments from people (apparently alarmed to find a big orange wasp in their yard) who found their way there via Google searches.

Grevy's zebra Equus grevyi

Endangered by hunting and competition with domestic livestock, Grevy's zebra are found only in small arid zones in Ethiopia and Kenya. Unlike other zebra, Grevy's guard territories with water sources rather than mates. They are the largest of the wild equids, with stallions reaching nearly 1000 pounds.

Franklin Park Zoo has several Grevy's zebras housed along with Wildebeests and other African plains animals in the Serengeti Crossing exhibit.



On this day in 365 Urban Species: Spotted sandpiper. We've been seeing a lot of these along the Muddy River lately.