A Microchipping Photo Story

Recently, we discussed the solution to identifying our individual naked mole rats: microchipping!

The following is a photo story of this procedure.

First, Animal Caretakers Lauren and Maida collect the naked mole rats from their chambers.

Then each mole rat is scanned with the previously chipped animals returned to the exhibit.

The mole rats await the procedure. A lot of squeaking is going on ...

… as Dr. Mass prepares …

… his magic box of tricks.

Next each naked mole rat is weighted and identified,

… logged in,

… and assigned a chip number.

One by one, the naked mole rats are anesthetized.

Dr. Maas carefully implants the microchip.

He applies a little antiseptic glue …

… and places the mole rat in a recovery chamber until it awakens ...

... with Animal Caretaker Katie watching over the recovering patients.

Once revived, the newly microchipped naked mole rats return to the colony, ready to entertain our guests. Come see them!


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Identifying the Colony

Since the arrival of six naked mole rats to Pacific Science Center from the Philadelphia Zoological Gardens in 1993, we have tried a variety of methods to identify each individual. Perhaps we have finally found a solution!

Taking care of eusocial animals means taking care of an entire group; not just individuals. Twenty-three years ago we primarily focused on the colony health and total number of naked mole rats. Over time we wanted more information and began to collect records on the individual animals.

Mole rats are not easy animals to identify individually. Unlike animals with anatomical features that can be marked and tagged, naked mole rats have internal ears and sensitive tails. A leg band could simply be chewed off.

In 2001, we first attempted to identify individual naked mole rats by implanting microchips. At that time, microchips were much larger than today’s implants. The few individuals whom we did microchip had significant issues with healing and infection after the procedure. Over time, they recovered and eight of those original few are still in our colony. That experience soured us on microchips for a long time.

Our next tactic was significantly lower tech: Sharpie markers. Animal Care used a combination of colors and ink placement on the mole rats’ skin. However, the ink had to be refreshed monthly as the marks easily faded from the animals’ thin and stretchy skin. After five years, we searched for a more permanent method to identify the naked mole rats.

In September 2011, we had the colony tattooed. We were very hopeful about this technique, but unfortunately tattoos were not a magical solution. The mole rats’ skin is so thin that the subcutaneous ink bled and the markings ran together. Furthermore, we had a large number of mole rats that were too young to be tattooed at that time. They have never been marked.

Back to the drawing board and back to the conversation about microchips. In the past 15 years, technology has produced an implantable microchip that is a fraction of the size of the old ones. But we were still cautious.

In October, our veterinarian Dr. Maas implanted microchips in three of the unmarked naked mole rats as a test. Noting their success, we next had a group of 24 chipped. All seem to be thriving.

Recently Dr. Maas completed the multistage chipping of our naked mole rat colony and now the members of the colony can easily be scanned and identified as they are checked for weight and health.

The next time we perform a mole rat health check we won’t have to squint and ask each other, “Was that one dot or two?” The future has arrived!


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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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Festivus For The Rest of Us - 2015

Once again, kicking off our year-end celebrations is the naked mole rats' favorite holiday – Festivus!

Stop by the colony, gather round the Festivus Pole, and watch your favorite Heterocephalus glaber as they perform

Feats of Strength and

Airing of Grievances.

Perhaps there will be Festivus Miracle.

Pacific Science Center will be closed on Christmas Day but reopen December 26th when we will be celebrating the 17th anniversary of our Tropical Butterfly House.

Happy holidays, everyone!


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Volunteer Postcard

With very mixed feelings our team recently said “bon voyage” to one of our Volunteer Animal Caretakers, Bridget. After ten months on the team, she left Seattle for a yearlong globetrotting adventure. Her journey started in the Middle East and Africa and ends in South East Asia. We couldn’t allow ourselves to be too sad because we were all so excited and supportive of her trip, and understandably thrilled to live through her vicariously.




So far she has been to Dubai, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Lesotho Botswana, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Mozambique, Tanzania, and Kenya. We have seen her pictures of lions, elephants, hippos, giraffes, and zebras etc., but we are probably most excited about her wild encounters with animals from our collection!



A big part of the reason that Bridget started volunteering with us was because of her love for naked mole rats. A significant part of her morning tasks was dedicated to cleaning, preparing food, and interpreting our naked mole-rat colony for guests. There are about 20 species of mole rat native to Africa, our beloved naked mole rats being one of them. While touring Great Zimbabwe, Bridget was lucky enough to encounter evidence of a colony:

As Bridget put it in a message sent to one of our Animal Caretakers: “At Great Zimbabwe, guide told me that these were Mole Rat Tunnels! I squealed with delight and he looked at me like I was insane.”



Bridget has also seen one of our most beloved arthropods that we have in the Insect Village: The Giant African Millipede. Coming across this giant diplopod in the wild would probably startle a lot of people, but Bridget was just excited and eager to share what she knew about them.




Along with her picture came this message “Look what I spotted in the wild! I got very excited and told everyone about my experience with Giant African Millipedes.” 
A few weeks later, Bridget found another Giant African Millipede in Kenya, “This one was real big! Crawling around on our porch, so cool!”


Thanks, Bridget, for sharing your pictures from the first half of your trip! We are excited to see if you encounter any more animals from our collection when you head to South East Asia. Hopefully when you are back you can volunteer with us again!



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Treating a Colony

When the Animal Care team began observing skin lesions on some of the naked mole rats recently, they called Dr. Maas from ZooVet to diagnose the problem. At first, a handful of animals had fairly obvious skin problems; everything from isolated bumps to reddened areas and swelling. The infections were mostly aesthetic and, from what we observed, were not causing any serious health problems. After careful observation, we found that 41 of our total 61 colony members had at least some sign of the infection. Dr. Maas assessed the situation and set up a treatment plan.

Naked mole rat colonies function as a team. Workers gather and share food, sleep in piles to conserve heat and pool moisture, split up tasks, from cleaning and guarding tunnels to breeding and bearing young. All this communal behavior means that when one colony member has a problem, it will probably impact the whole group.
Dr. Maas suspected that an ongoing decision to lower cage temperatures had made the animals susceptible to skin lesions. If we raised temperatures we could halt its spread but we would still have to treat all the animals showing current symptoms.

Unfortunately there are a great many unknowns about how mole rats interact with medicines. One known is that their guts contain complex groups of beneficial microbes. We wanted an antibiotic that would not harm these vital helpers. Injectable medication bypasses the gut. Giving a shot is also – perhaps surprisingly – less invasive to the animals than squirting medicine into their mouths. We tested our medication of choice, Ceftazidime, on four animals and observed them closely for a few days to make sure there were no serious side effects. When we detected no problems, we began a treatment program for all 41 impacted animals.

Forty-one animals, each given two injections a day for ten days means a lot of shots and a lot of animal sorting. To save sorting time, we marked the mole rats to be treated with a colored marker. Physically separating the medicating group for ten days might risk a battle when they are reintroduced.

So twice a day, the affected animals are pulled out, weighed, and given a medication dose based on their current weight. A full belly can mean several grams difference so they are weighed at every treatment. This treatment will continue for a total of 10 days.

Most of the mole rats are pretty unperturbed by the whole process, with the exception of the ones who take the guard role in the colony. The procedure seriously annoys them.

Midway through the treatment plan, there are no observable problems from the medication and fewer and fewer skin lesions among the animals. Staff is getting better at administering treatments. Of course, everyone is looking forward to the end of this process and having a healthier colony. Especially the naked mole rats.


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Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day from Pacific Science Center, Animal Care, and our naked mole rats. In honor of the occasion, today Animal Caretakers presented the colony with seasonal edibles.

How do you like their heart-beets?

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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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Festivus for the Rest of Us - 2014

This year as in the past, Galinda, Elphaba, Hairless Houdini, The Riddler, Toothless and the 57 other naked mole rats invite you to join them in their annual celebration of Festivus!

In addition to the traditional Festivus Pole, visitors will be able to observe Feats of Strength!

Airing of Grievances!

Animal caretakers have also set aside a chamber for anticipated Festivus Miracles.

There will be lots of red food on hand for the celebratory feast. So come visit today and join the fun or if you can’t, watch the party on our webcam.

Happy holidays from your furless friends at Pacific Science Center!

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