The Flopsy Memo

Last week the following memo was given to the Animal Care staff:


Axolotl “Flopsy” went in to the vet because of swelling on the left side of her face and nasal discharge. Dr. Maas [our vet from The Center for Bird and Exotic Animal Medicine] expressed a surprising quantity of whitish discharge from her left nostril. Her face was noticeably more normal looking when he was done. The discharge was full of bacteria and dead cells, but had no signs of fungal infection. Dr. Maas said she appears to have a sinus infection.


She is to be given a daily antibiotic injection. The antibiotic is stored in the freezer. Before injecting, thaw it to room temperature, and remove all the air from the syringe. They put in a lot of air to protect the syringe from damage when the liquid expands during freezing.

Place Flopsy in a small plastic container and restrain her while you inject into the flesh part of her shoulder. Use the left shoulder on even days and the right on odd days. Wearing gloves helps make her slightly less slippery. The shot does hurt when it happens and she will thrash. But remind yourself that axolotls have incredible healing powers and that an infection hurts worse. And falling would hurt much worse, so don’t be afraid to use sufficient restraint.

If her face looks swollen again, either let me know or you can gently press the sinus area below her eye, toward the nostril, to clear out more of the discharge.

Sarah Moore
March 30, 2011

Never a dull moment in Animal Care!


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Estrella's Strange Behavior

Last week, the daily log was filled with comments on Estrella, the boa constrictor’s unusual behavior. She was described as ‘hissing’ ‘aggressive’, and ‘did not want to move’ when her cage was being cleaned. Although she is always the most active, opinionated and responsive of our snakes, Estrella is normally tractable and fun to work with. So her behavior was alarming.



As always, we need to rule out health problems whenever an animal’s behavior changes. If she has no other way to communicate, a snake who does not feel well may react to handling by biting. For this reason, we treat all behavior issues as possible health problems.

Dr. Maas of Avian and Exotic Animal Hospital in Bothell gave Estrella a head-to-tail exam and commented that if there were no complaint, he would have said she was in excellent health. But to be safe, we did some ultrasound and blood work. The results may explain Estrella’s behavior.


She is starting to ovulate.

Boas are seasonal breeders. A drop in nighttime temperatures triggers the females to begin preparing eggs for fertilization, and the males to get ready to mate. Although we did not intentionally change the temperature of their cages, the cold weather has caused the buildings to be cooler. The snake enclosures have a fairly wide temperature range within them, and the cooler areas probably fell below the point that would induce breeding behavior.

Ovulating can bring about marked changes in snake behavior. They often lose interest in food (though Estrella has not) and may be either withdrawn or cranky. But ovulation is not a medical condition. We were instructed to continue handling Estrella so long as she cooperated, which she has been from the minute she went to the vet. Perhaps Estrella just needed someone to understand her!

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Helping the medicine go down

When staff at Pacific Science Center prepare to work with reptiles, we are trained on preventing the spread of the Salmonella bacteria, and instructed to view our reptiles as potential salmonella carriers. Many of our handling, care, and public contact rules come from this training.

So getting a positive salmonella test result back from Avian and Exotic Animal Hospital when they tested our boa constrictors was not entirely unexpected.



However, in the case of one snake, Estrella, an elevated population of these bacteria in her gut may have led to other behavior problems and an overall decline in health. Dr. Maas suggested an aggressive course of antibiotic treatment for all three boa constrictors, to either eliminate the bacteria, or at least reduce the levels to a point where more beneficial gut bacteria could hold them in check. This would get Estrella back into the pink and keep Esteban and Estella feeling great.


Each snake is given approximately 0.5 cc of medicine, orally, each morning for 30 days. Medicating a snake is easier said than done.

If you have medicated a dog or cat, you know to aim for the back of the mouth, so that the animal tastes less and swallows more quickly. This is even more important with snakes. First, snakes’ mouths are good at swallowing large prey items, but they are not good at retaining liquid. Medication placed near the front of the mouth has a habit of leaking back out.


More frightening, a snake’s epiglottis (opening to their windpipe) is located on the bottom of the mouth, and can be moved quite far forward. This allows snakes to breathe while to swallowing prey. Unfortunately, it means we risk accidentally administering medication into a snake’s lung instead of its stomach. We use a tube to make sure the liquid gets down to the back of the mouth. Watch out for teeth!


Contrary to myth, snakes are not actually slimy. They are very smooth, nonetheless, and slide through our grip when we try to restrain them. A firm hand, and a quick partner giving the medication, gets the job done.


Estrella is already feeling much better and doesn’t seem to hold a grudge against us for giving her medication. Esteban and Estella are doing great as well.
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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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Galinda's Litter

Perceptive visitors have noticed that we had a very pregnant Naked mole-rat in our colony.

Readers of this blog may recall previous stories about our two queens, nick-named Elphaba and Galinda, and the November report of Galinda’s pregnancy. Pacific Science Center’s Animal Care staff was hoping for a small, successful litter but as the due-date approached, it was apparent that the litter would be large.

Sometime between 5pm closing on December 22 and 7am December 23, Galinda delivered twenty baby mole-rats. In a large litter the pups are competing for nutrients before they are born and not all are expected to survive. Certainly this was the case with Galinda’s offspring. Within hours, some of the smallest and weakest individuals died.

The first five days are always critical for mole-rats pups. Because of this, we are hesitant to announce the new litter until after this precarious period. In fact, none of the twenty pups from Galinda’s December 23 litter survived.


Now we wonder - what’s going on? Each queen now has healthy progeny integrated into the colony but both of their most recent litters have failed. We have scheduled a visit from our veternarian, Dr. Maas at Avian and Exotic Animal Hospital and will be taking a closer look at our husbandry protocols. Watch these pages for updates.

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Mole-Rat Babies

Call them ugly or cute, you must see our baby naked mole-rats. Looks aside, we are very excited to have developed husbandry protocols that helped get them through their crucial first week of life.

Eighteen months ago, the prospect of rearing mole-rat pups was a distant hope. Our colony was in serious trouble. We had lost half a dozen workers in as many months. Inexplicably, each animal’s necropsy (animal autopsy) showed unique causes of death –there was no single cause.

Making any major changes to these animals’ care is risky. As eusocial animals, mole-rats depend on scent cues to recognize members of their own colony. Any antibiotic treatment must be carefully developed to avoid killing their life-giving, symbiotic bacteria.

Two things caused me to consider trying antibiotics and husbandry changes. One was negative: the losses in the colony. Despite my fears about treatment, the risk of doing nothing was greater. The positive side was our new veterinary service, Avian and Exotic Animal Hospital . Dr’s Maas and Ferguson were committed to develop a protocol to bring the colony back into perfect health. They carefully examined the animals, testing their blood, stools, urine and nostrils for signs of infection. In due course, they developed treatment designed with mole-rats’ delicate digestive and behavioral needs in mind.

After two intense weeks of daily injections for each of our 23 colony members, bleaching their home and replacing all their contact surfaces, we saw glimmers of hope. Animals started gaining weight and the mysterious deaths ceased.

But the first pregnancy after these treatments ended badly. And over time, pups were born but the colony appeared unwilling or unable to rear them.

Interfering in the behavior of highly social animals often does more harm than good, but our colony had come to a reproductive standstill – adults were doing well, but the babies could not survive. Perhaps the colony, lacking experience with successfully rearing pups, needed some adjustments, at least to successfully bring up one litter.

Three days before her due date, the pregnant queen and two helpers were settled in chambers separated from the rest of the colony. To keep all the workers familiar with their queen, we switched one worker every morning and one each night with a new mole-rat from the colony.

When the queen gave birth, the helpers appeared calm but interested in the babies. By the next day we saw encouraging signs – a tiny white region in each pup’s middle indicated milk had made its way into their bellies.

On the tenth day (August 17), the pups were old enough to right themselves and move independently. Soon they will show interest in solid food. Next we can begin reintegrating the queen and her helpers into the colony.


The first year of a mole-rat’s life is one of challenge but with the most difficult ten days behind them, these pups are off to a good start!

Congratulations if you read this far! The first person to post a comment or question below wins a “behind the scenes” chance to help us care for the mole-rats, and if you wish, you may help choose color markings to identify the new babies.

-Sarah Moore, Life Sciences program manager

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