“Accession” is a word the zoological world uses to mean, “adding to.” It’s the term applied to newly acquired individuals to a museum/zoo/aquarium’s collection. We don’t have a large turnover in our collection at the museum. Every year we lose some animals due to old age, health problems, or transfers to other institutions and we gain a couple, but our collection stays at about the same number. Because we don’t take in new animals very often, I found it interestingRead more
Posts tagged: #Marilyn
Red Ruffed Lemur Training
I recently mentioned we’re now working on crate training the red ruffed lemurs. It’s been quite awhile since they have worked on this behavior. The last couple days have been very successful. All three lemurs have gone all the way into their crates. 🙂 This is just the beginning so check back soon for updates. Iris is going into the top crate at the same time that Jethys is going into the bottom crate.Read more
Big Word of the Month: Symbiosis
Many of the animals at the museum live with another animal of a different specie. They might live together because they seem to like each other or because they don’t bother one another and fit the exhibit well (large exhibits with 1 animal are pretty boring if that one animal doesn’t want to be in sight of guests). Some of the animals we have together are a donkey and dwarf goats, a steer and a boer goat, a pine snakeRead more
QuikPost: Ah, that refreshing watermelon
Only 7 days away from National Watermelon Day! Personally, I’m glad there is a day for everyone to celebrate watermelon. I think it is one of the most refreshing foods you can eat on a hot summer day. Many of our animals seem to find it refreshing (or at least enjoyable), as well. Check out the video below of some of our indoor animals (and maybe even a keeper) enjoying some yummy watermelon. And don’t worry, Sherry, I put the keeper up toRead more
Forget the porridge, give me cotton candy!
Every Thursday the animal department staff (along with any volunteers or museum staff that can tolerate the keepers) go to lunch together somewhere off campus. Occasionally we splurge and go to Golden Corral. A few weeks ago some of the keepers noticed there was blue cotton candy in the dessert section. We decided to take all the cotton candy they had (of course, we waited until we were on our way out to snag it all) so that we could seeRead more
QuikPost: hoarders
The last couple of days we have been watching our muskrats closely because we were concerned one of them may have been acting a bit lethargic. So you can imagine what a pleasant surprise it was to see them both running around the exhibit early this morning! Most of our visitors that come regularly usually only see our muskrats sleeping in their wooden house. That’s because they tend to be most active in the morning (at least for the timeRead more