This morning I started cutting produce and preparing the giant tortoise salad. I got to bring the food out to the giant tortoises which was quite fun. Usually there is a good amount of people looking at the giant tortoises, but when I am out there feeding even more people are crowded around the fence. When putting out the salads, I make a few different piles in the exhibit, but of course, most of the tortoises wanted to eat at the same pile. That led to a little bit of tortoise pushing in order to lay on the most salad. I finally learned that my tortoise friend that always wants a neck rub is named Othello! Today was no different, even with the salads being put out, Othello still wanted some attention. Back inside, I helped prepare more salads before and after the morning break. After all the salads were prepared, I cleaned out the salad bins and cleaned the black worms.
After lunch, I did the dishes and then was able to practice my snake hook skills by moving snakes to clean out their enclosures. Most of the snakes were very easy to work with, only one of them was a little more squirmy. I felt really accomplished when I moved a snake in and out of its enclosure without a problem! While I was working with the snakes another zookeeper was working with a Prehensile-tailed Skink (also known as a Solomon Islands Skink). These are really amazing animals! Their tail is fully prehensile, so as the zookeeper was holding it, the skink had its tail wrapped around the keeper's arm. What also makes these animal unique is that the baby is connected to the mother with a placenta during the gestation period. Normally a reptile produces an egg, leaving the baby with a source of nutrients through the yolk of the egg. They are also the largest extant species of skinks! I got to watch as the keeper brought the skink outside to be photographed for a new information board. As if the skink knew what was going on, it posed perfectly! Afterwards, the keeper and I went outside to organize large water tubs. When we turned one of the tubs over insects started coming out and flying all over. We both quickly moved away from the nest and waited for a insectarium keeper to come over. He said that they were yellow jackets and that we were lucky that neither of us got stung. So, needless to say, we did not do any more tub rearrangement. After break, we plugged the one remaining large water tub inside and I also did water changes on two larger Alligator Snapping Turtle tubs. While I was working on that, there was a call over the radio that one of the giant tortoises was eating a map. By the time I got outside, another keeper was already in the exhibit picking up the pieces of the zoo map. I hope this goes without saying, but please do not through anything into an animal exhibit. The animal might not realize that it should not be eating it, and if they do eat something unnatural, it could cause serious health issues. After finishing up the water changes, it was time to head home.
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| Prehensile-Tailed Skink |
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