I spent Tuesday at the London Zoo. For real, the one in England. I cannot show you any photos. My family took the camera because they were going to Buckingham Palace. Evidently that deserved the camera more than the zoo did, however you can click here to learn about the London Zoo. The zoo was very large and had some great exhibits, and because it is the oldest zoo, had a lot of ‘older’ style exhibits. I saw tapirs andRead more
Posts tagged: #animals
Update on our new keeper
A while ago, I wrote about all our keepers and how each of their strengths make our animal department team better. We were in the process of hiring a new keeper then, so I thought I’d give an update. New keeper Cassidy has worked in the past with lemurs and also with black bears and other native NC wildlife. She was actually a volunteer here at the museum when she was a teenager!One of the great things about having aRead more
Big Word of the Month: Poikilotherm
Poikilothermy is one my favorite words in Biology. The first syllable rhymes with “Boy”, the second part is like “key low” and the last part rhymes with “wormy”. This mouthful is the term scientists use for animals with variable body temperatures (poikilos means varied in Greek). You might have heard the term cold-blooded applied to reptiles and fish but decades of research have shown that these animals are more thermally complex than the name implies. Many poikilotherms have a preferredRead more
Rubber donkey you’re the one…
Just a quick post to show you a donkey dust bath. Lightning the donkey gets to go on a walk in the mornings before the museum opens. One of his favorite things to do while out is to scrape up some stone dust and roll around in it. Lots of mammals take dust baths to add to a layer fine grit to their coats. The powdery material is irritating to small insects and thus cuts down on the annoying fliesRead more
Spotlight: Kent Carter
Kent has been working as an Animal Keeper at the Museum for almost 12 years. I remember when I hired him he said I asked him the best interview questions ever. Kent is one of the animal department’s Senior Animal Keepers. His focus is on special projects. This includes things like working with groups of kids from schools on projects, mowing the bear yard, venomous snake work, and much more. Kent is the keeper who does most of the potentiallyRead more
opossum surprise
I walked out of my office to recycle some paper and to my surprise I put the paper on top of a sleeping opossum. I really shouldn’t have been surprised as it is not the first time that our ‘possums have deceided to take a snooze in the recycling box. Jill showed you another photo in her last post about recycling We let our education opossums (and other animals) have exercise on our support hall, but after they’re done withRead more