Feeding Naked Mole Rats

Have you ever wondered what and how we feed our naked mole rats? Watch Davis and Katie to find out!

https://youtu.be/3ZiXwRwLGAo

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Treats and Tricks

Life Sciences' Halloween tradition started early this year with assorted tricks and treats for our critters. All of Pacific Science Center has been observing Grosstober this month and will top it off this Friday and Saturday, October 30 and 31, with Tricks Treats And Science Feats.

Come by and see Iggy enjoy her treat basket …

... and the Madagascar hissing cockroaches’ black cat decor.

One sea urchin snared a skeleton …

... while another urchin used the corpse as a decoration!

The millipedes investigated their bumpy pumpkin …

... but Ali couldn’t figure out what the yellow brain was doing in his enclosure.

Lydia may not know what to make of the pumpkin on her doorstep …

But the naked mole rats don’t even care. They love this time of year! We do, too!

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Halloween Urchins

What happens when you try to dress a sea urchin up for Halloween? Apparently, the urchin tries on the outfit but ends up wearing something else. But we had reason to hope our costumes would work.


Urchins primarily eat algae and kelp, often grabbing bits of food out of the water. Then they use their tube feet and spines to convey food from whatever part of the body first contacts it, to their mouth. Animal Caretakers enjoy offering them long strands of kelp just to watch this process.

It’s also common for green sea urchins to have non-food items all over their top and sides. They will hold onto those items for days or longer. It’s hard not to think that they must somehow benefit from doing this. Our green urchins are all carrying something, usually small shells or bits of coral. This behavior has been extensively studied. Possible explanations offered by scientists are refreshingly similar to the reasons anyone else might think of:

♣ To protect themselves from predators
♣ To protect themselves from wave action
♣ To take the brunt of collisions with flotsam and jetsam
♣ To protect themselves from harmful UV radiation
♣ In case there’s something edible on the item, they can eat it later
♣ Holding debris is an inadvertent result of being able to hold useful things like food and substrate

Recently in the Halloween holiday spirit, we offered our sea urchins something small and lightweight to hang onto. In the hopes of illustrating this behavior we offered a Star Wars Imperial Stormtrooper helmet. For a couple of days it worked, but so far the urchins show a strong preference for the shells and bits of debris that would be more natural in their habitat.

We want our animals’ enrichment to fill their needs as well as provide learning opportunities for our guests. The Stormtrooper helmet was fun and offered a good way to open conversations about this behavior, but so far the urchins are having none of it. And they get to decide.


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Super Bowl Sunday

Today is the big day for the Seattle Seahawks football team and much like last year, the 12s at Pacific Science Center are joining in the excitement.

All week the naked mole rats have been in Feast Mode.

In our Tropical Butterfly House, the butterflies enjoy their own Legion of Bloom fruit platter.

Stop by and observe our many displays of animal enrichment or watch the naked mole rats play grapeball over their live-streaming webcam.

GO HAWKS!


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The Dropcam Adventure

On the evening of January 18th, all seemed calm in the world of Pacific Science Center’s naked mole rat colony. Some were happily munching away on their sweet potatoes and the rest were sleeping peacefully in their chambers.

By the next morning, there was a very different situation. The naked mole rats were roaming around in the outer enclosed area of their exhibit space. In the upper story of their exhibit, a security band was no longer securing a tube into its chamber. The mole rats had pushed the tube out of the chamber and climbed out.

Fortunately none of the fugitive mole rats was injured in the process. All the wandering animals received a thorough health check and were returned to their chamber space. The tube was re-secured. Other than Animal Care staff continuing to monitor the mole rat health, this would be the end of the story.

However with the advent of new technology and the far-reaching expanse of the Internet, we now have new ways to understand what is going on in our mole rat colony after hours. Thanks to our Naked Mole Rat Dropcam, we discovered that we have camera viewers around the world - in Finland and Germany to be exact. While most everyone in Seattle was fast asleep, our far away friends were just waking up to the after-hours antics of the naked mole rats. One German viewer wonderfully documented the naked mole rat expedition, noting the time, the number, and the behavior of individuals on their walk-about. Our observer also hypothesized where the breach might be located.

Readers may recall that this is not the first time our mole rats have escaped from the tube system within their enclosure. Each time, we take the information from the breach and try to prevent it from happening again. Now, the Dropcam gives us information that we couldn’t have before. We can go back and view the situation through stored camera footage and learn more about their behaviors. Previously, we could only see the aftermath. The earlier camera footage not only corroborates our viewer’s observations but also helps us solve escape problems going forward.

When trying to prevent the mole rats’ mischief, we look for their motivation to escape. We provide enrichment to entertain them. Part of their enrichment includes a dynamic system of chambers, particularly the second level, which makes for a bigger challenge for Animal Caretakers to secure. We secure chambers with rubber bands on the lids and non-slip mats underneath.

After this last escape, we worked with our exhibits team to refine the tube assembly. A routed groove allows a connection between the PVC joints so strong that even a human can’t break it.

Next, a wider base for our second level chambers should limit the tubes from being jostled loose. And as always, in the event that mole rats escape to the outer enclosure, they still have nowhere to go. That space is locked up tight with the same temperature and humidity as the chambers.

Besides giving us more information about mole rats’ nocturnal behaviors, this experience made us aware of the naked mole rat fans we have around the world. We absolutely loved hearing from our European viewers even if it took an unusual situation for them to share with us. In fact, we love hearing from all our mole rat fans. So please, check out both Naked Mole Rat Cam I and Cam II and share your stories with us. What have you seen our furless friends doing?


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And Now, 12th Butterflies!

Continuing the Life Sciences football frenzy, Animal Care Lead Lauren Bloomenthal created a fruited field for our tropical butterflies. In our football field, mangos represent the Broncos, and grapes and blueberries represent the Seahawks. However, this game has been taken over completely by Owl butterflies. They are all over the field!

And don’t forget the naked mole rat colony where Animal Caretaker Maida Ingalls and Intern Sharette added some more fan food.

Go Hawks!


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The 12th Naked Mole Rats

Do mole rats choose sides in sporting events?

We don’t know, and we aren’t here to speculate. What we do know is that lead Animal Caretaker Lauren Bloomenthal is a Seattle Seahawks fan. This week she wanted to do something special for our animals to celebrate her favorite team’s journey to the Super Bowl. She requested a blue and green color scheme for the mole rats' habitat.

While shopping, Life Sciences manager Sarah Moore stumbled upon some bags of colorful bedding and a toy loofah football. Perfect for the naked mole rats!

When we add fun touches like team colors or holiday features, we always want to ask ourselves: What's our message? We can show our enthusiasm for a favorite team but we also want our additions to meet the criteria of enriching the animals’ lives or helping us better understand them.

Having chambers with two colors of bedding helped us visualize how quickly the colony moves its bedding from one place to another. As it turns out, they do that pretty quickly. The bedding serves as a substitute for the soil they would excavate in the wild, as well as being used to soften the floor in their sleeping chamber and absorb waste in their latrines. But moving bedding is also exercise and stimulation for the animals.

When Lauren filled the chambers at 9:00 am, each chamber held distinctive patterns of blue bedding or green bedding. By noon, many of the chambers held mixed bedding. By days end, there were bits of green and blue in every chamber including the latrines, which hold our normal buff bedding in the morning.

Staff discussed and rejected some other forms of Seahawk themed enrichment. Sea urchins are well known for holding onto stray bits of shell and seaweed. We could easily coax them into sporting shells painted with the iconic number 12. However, if there is even a little chance of harming the water quality, this cute idea is not worth it.

Enrichment has to meet a need for our animals, or we don’t do it. But if it is safe and we can give ourselves a little enrichment fun at the same time - why not?

Next: Do butterflies have team favorites? Stay tuned to see if the butterflies’ fruit trays turn into football fields!


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The Truth About Animal Care

Earlier this year, we posted a story about our high hopes for the observation beehive. Although the beehive performed brilliantly all summer and well into fall, the population became too low to expect it to carry over into spring. As the Animal Care Department sat down to discuss this, and to think about how to present the saga, a larger story emerged.



BEES

An observation beehive is a very long way from the original life of a honeybee, native to southern Europe and North Africa. Bees evolved in warm, dry climates with lots of sunshine. Beekeepers have explored and mastered techniques for maintaining bees in situations vastly different from their natural habitat. But they have also inadvertently exposed them to chemicals and pathogens that did not exist in their place of origin. The price of transporting animals out of their natural habitat is the constant struggle to create a viable alternative.

But what about our other exhibit animals? How does captivity increase or diminish their chances of long, comfortable lives?

BUTTERFLIES

The residents of our Tropical Butterfly House come to us as pupae, so they have already lived longer than most butterflies would in the wild. In nature, butterflies produce far more eggs than will live to maturity. Predators, hunger, and disease can reduce the caterpillar population from dozens to just a few pupae. Therefore, few adults live long enough to reproduce. Butterfly farming tilts the odds in favor of the young surviving to adulthood.

Once our butterflies mature and fly around, they face fewer predators or weather hazards than they would in the wild. Sure, there are dangers but our Tropical Butterfly House is pretty safe. Our horticulture team provides ample nectar sources, and there’s fruit for those who prefer it. We choose species that don’t migrate, so their instincts to fly away are not thwarted. Our butterflies do not get to reproduce, but instead they serve as ambassadors for butterflies in the wild. They build good will and interest in preserving wild places for generations of insects to come.

NAKED MOLE RATS

So what about our naked mole rats? Our colony surely has less space than it might in the wild. This is where our Animal Care staff’s commitment to enrichment is critical. Naked mole rats are the most active, dynamic animals we exhibit. Their need to be busy leads to stress related health problems if we don’t challenge them. By constantly changing their surroundings and introducing food in novel ways, we keep them learning and moving. And we entertain our guests and ourselves.

The mole rats show no sign of being bothered by the sounds outside their chambers. They generate a fair amount of their own noise through chewing, and seem oblivious to other sounds. The daily maintenance from Animal Care staff is probably a mild stressor, but remember, not all stress is bad. It keeps animals engaged and busy.

No one knows how long naked mole rats live in the wild, but most sources agree that they live much longer in captivity and if their social needs are met, their quality of life is excellent.

SNAKES

Our boa constrictors are harder to keep active. As they reach their middle years, many snakes naturally become more sedentary, and ours are surely no exception. When you watch a snake presentation at our Live Science Stage, you are participating in an important part of the snake’s wellbeing and care: Exercise. Being handled is one of the best exercises these animals can get.

AXOLOTLS

The axolotls are a sad example of animals whose best chance of survival is in captivity. Introduced species, habitat loss, and human hunting critically endanger their natural relatives.

Axolotls have very specific water quality needs, but once those are met, they need (and want) less enrichment than many animals. Their natural place in the ecosystem is at the top of their food chain, with abundant resources and little novelty. Axolotls show stress very readily, so as long as they are healthy we have a good indication that their quality of life is good.

TIDE POOL ANIMALS

The tide pool animals live in a much-compressed version of their natural habitat. Our deep and shallow ends do not replicate the diverse ecosystems of Puget Sound. And we don’t have waves! Life in the open water is both more dangerous and more varied than what we can provide. At low tide, shore life is exposed to predation from gulls, crows, eagles, and shore birds pecking and grabbing them. Surely, they can withstand careful fingers!

What our tide pool animals really need is lots of love in the form of caring for their habitat. If our tide pool animals help create the bond that encourages that care, we think that’s a good use of their time.

This article is a long way of explaining that the animals in our care at Pacific Science Center teach us all about the bigger world and hopefully how to maintain it.
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Turnip Tale

Like many urban farmers, Life Sciences Manager Sarah Moore has a thriving garden at home. Recently when she discovered a behemoth turnip accidently growing in her greenhouse she thought, “Now who might be interested in a 2.5-kilo turnip?”

While extremely large vegetables are often unpalatable to humans, the naked mole rats could have a great time with the monster tuber. So Sarah brought the giant tuber to work.

Sometimes big root vegetables will have some not-so-nice things hidden inside. So before we placed the turnip in the mole rat compound, we washed it, and dug into the center jack-o-lantern style. We easily determined that the turnip was insect free.

Next we dug a few cavities into the sides, filled them with dough and placed the turnip in one of the chambers. The smell of the dough and turnip immediately awoke the colony. Within minutes, they were feasting.

Here at Pacific Science Center naked mole rats rarely have the opportunity to actually burrow into their vegetables. Every so often it’s nice for them to have some natural enrichment to keep their innate behaviors strong.

Happy eating, guys!


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