January Vet Visit

On Jan 19, Dr. Maas and Dr. Temple from Avian and Exotic Animal Hospital paid a routine house call to Pacific Science Center’s animals.



Each of our snakes received a full physical exam from head to tail. The insides of their mouths were examined for broken teeth, pale gums, excess saliva, or loud breathing. The skin was inspected as well. Snake skin should be clear and unblemished, without old scales from previous skin sheds.


Snake’s undersides were felt for lumps or irregularities. Overall conditions were noted. Estella is a little heavy! Dr. Maas recommended we feed each of the boa constrictors a small rat on a weekly schedule.


It was in this exam that a strange lump was felt in Maizey, the corn snake’s abdomen. As previously explained, Dr. Maas took Maizey back to his hospital for further examination with sad results.

Lydia, the leopard gecko, looks great. She has a fat tail which is a sign of good health in these animals. We were warned to not associate her with other leopard geckos as they might not be as healthy.



Dr. Maas recommended that we house our African dwarf frogs separate from the axolotls. Their skin is toxic to axolotls. The frogs are currently partitioned from the axolotls with a simple tank divider. Should a frog escape and end up in an axolotl mouth, it could be fatal to both animals. Stay tuned! Plans for a separate dwarf frog exhibit are in the works!


The naked mole-rats were looked at for overall colony health. Most of them have gained weight over the last year. Pups from our two recent litters are nearly the size of the smallest adults. Unfortunately, a few individuals are not thriving. We discussed how best to monitor them, and set up a plan for a thorough colony clean. In future articles, we’ll discuss our naked mole-rat husbandry routines and report on the results.


All in all, the vets’ visit was careful, thorough, and exhaustive. Animal Care staff always learns a lot from these house calls which help us better care for our animals.

Thanks to Alice Enevoldsen, Pacific Science Center’s planetarium specialist, for photographing the veterinarians’ visit.
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The Multispecies Aquarium Community

You never know what you’ll find when you open the refrigerator in Pacific Science Center’s Animal Care room. Take for instance this past week. Inside the 40°F refrigerator, slowly swimming around in a plastic container were Flopsy, Mopsy and Peter Cottongills, our resident Axolotls. What were they doing there?


For almost a year our trio of Mexican axolotls (Ambystoma mexicanum) has lived in freshwater aquatic bliss only having to share their tank with a few docile guppies. Now the neighborhood has changed. Animal Care has recently acquired some African dwarf frogs (Hymenochirus boettgeri). What could be a better home for the dwarf frogs than the Axolotl tank?

Multispecies aquaria can be challenging to create. We must consider the temperature, salinity and pH of the water that the different species need. Are their environments compatible? With a little research we learned that the freshwater requirements of axolotls, frogs and guppies are pretty much the same.


Next we wondered: Can the African dwarf frogs peacefully coexist with moderately aggressive axolotls? Or should a separate apartment be created for the smaller animals? Considering that the tiny and aptly named African dwarf frogs are just about bite-sized for an axolotl, we elected not to test our luck. We reconfigured the aquarium with a pane of Plexiglas dividing a small portion of the tank for the frogs.

In addition to making spatial arrangements for our new dwarf frog residents we also gave the tank a full clean. As a regular readers may recall, keeping a clean aquarium for axolotls has been difficult. In the meantime, Flopsy, Mopsy and Peter Cottongills took up temporary residence inside the refrigerator, which gave a little shock to Animal Caretakers dropping off their lunches first thing in the morning.

The aquarium has since been put back together and our aquatic animals appear to be happy and healthy. Come check out our new multispecies aquarium on view for the public.

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