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
Posts tagged: #museum
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
Born Free, Bat Free!
A few months ago we discovered we had an uninvited guest living on the 3rd floor of the Museum of Life + Science. During the cold of winter a big brown bat, Eptesicus fuscus, was found snoozing near some storage areas in the museum’s attic. We did not release the bat immediately because the likelihood of it surviving was very low. This species normally hibernates much of the winter and would not normally be seen outside in colder months. Luckily,Read 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
Is a bear always a bear?
Keeper Marilyn did a good job of outlining the different kinds of bears in her recent post. But did you know there has been quite a bit of debate about whether one those she listed should be considered a bear? Giant Panda feasting on bamboo Panda bears or more correctly Giant Pandas are native to China and certainly look like bears. But what about the Red Panda? Obviously, it got the name “panda” because it shares many of the featuresRead more