Once upon a midnight dreary… I decided to write about crows and ravens. Yea, I know…not as good as old Edgar but,nonetheless I am sure you will learn something in this post. One thing is my birthday falls on Halloween(presents can be left at the front desk),secondly we all know I love birds so I decided to talk about birds associated with Halloween. Crows and their relatives are in the family Corvidae. You can find them everywhere except for theRead more
Posts filed in: Education
What is that?!
I asked Kent who is one of our keepers, what animal he liked that not many people knew about. The one that has a special place in Kent’s heart is a turtle, commonly called a Matamata. Matamata means “I kill” where as the scientific name of Chelus fimbriatus means “fringed turtle.” In the wild, the only place you will see these guys is if you go to the slower part of the streams and rivers of South America. They feedRead more
Volunteer Vox: The Scoop on Snake Poop
I was hoping to write my first Animal Department blog post about volunteering to help clean the bear pool. But, alas, the weather did not cooperate and the bear pool cleaning was postponed. But, I was already at the Museum so I decided to stay and help out with the off-exhibit animals. Maybe you didn’t know that there are many animals who live behind the scenes. These residents are usually used for education purposes (and sometimes they even get toRead more
Vultures
A vulture is probably one of the most underestimated birds of prey. It is associated with death and isn’t exactly the most beautiful thing in the world. They are the garbage collectors in the world of nature. They can prevent the spread of diseases that dead animals may have by consuming them before they rot. They have great eyesight to search for their next meal and are also believed to have the best sense of smell in the variety ofRead more
Birds of Prey
Many people that know me are aware of the fact that I love birds. I especially like birds of prey and parrots. Being, that I am a new blogger, I decided to do a few posts about birds. In this one, I am going to introduce you to Birds of prey and raptors. All raptors are birds of prey, but not all birds of prey are raptors. Confused? Well, a raptor is defined as birds that kill prey with itsRead more
Big Word of the Month: Fimicolous
My wife Sandy, also a lover of big science words, passed along this month’s feature. Fimicolous is an adjective formed from Latin roots that mean “to inhabit dung” and is used to describe organisms that live in, on, and with animal waste. As animal keepers we spend a lot of time dealing with poop and you might be amazed at all the living things that utilize poop. Perhaps most famous are the dung beetles, a group of scarab beetles thatRead more