Goodbye Estrella

We are sad to announce that last week during a routine morning check we found our red-tailed boa constrictor, Estrella, dead in her cage. Her death came as a shock to us all. Up until the end, she showed no signs of slowing down. In fact as recently as Aug 8th, she performed in a show at a Mercer Slough summer camp, doing what she did best – putting on a great show.



Estrella and her clutch mates Esteban and Estella came to Pacific Science Center in 2000 as young snakes. As they grew, each manifested a unique personality that belied the notion that all snakes are essentially interchangeable.

Estrella had always been the pistol, the spark, and the hotshot of our boa constrictor collection. She was the one who always struck at her food. For many years she was deeply and somewhat fearfully respected by generations of the presentation staff. They loved Estrella’s confidence and vigor but were kept on the alert by her moving about, showing her moods, and displaying a big, powerful personality.

When Estrella ate, she would seize the rat out of the tongs, crush it as though it were not dead, and wolf it down with gusto. It was fascinating to watch an animal go from motionless to lightning-quick so rapidly. Estrella clearly showed what extraordinary hunters these snakes can be. Occasionally we would offer Estrella more than one food item. Unlike our other boa constrictors, she would always strike at each one.

But Estrella also had a cranky side. She was known to hiss, show her fangs, and put her handlers on alert when she didn’t like something. On the rare occasions when we took her to the vet for suspected health problems, it was always because of her showing these threatening behaviors. These actions were her way of communicating to us when she felt something was not right.

Estrella always mellowed a bit once we got her feeling better. Then she would put on a fantastic performance and win everyone over with her strength, confidence, and willingness to wrap around the handler’s waist and stay in place for the entire length of a show.

Estrella had a few short illnesses in her fourteen years and Animal Care staff did not see the old crankiness that preceded her death.

We will miss her.


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Our Snake with an Ache

So much of a snake’s anatomy is vertebrae. The very phrase “a snake with a back ache” sounds like a definition of misery. So when our red boa constrictor, Esteban, started showing signs of stiffness and discomfort in two sections of his spine, we knew at once we wanted to help him feel better.

During his quarterly house call, Dr. Maas observed each of our snakes as they moved about on the ground. We rarely get a chance to see the natural movement of our boas because they’re either in their cages or in the hands of presenters. This was a good opportunity for Animal Caretakers to watch our large snakes in action.

A snake with complete range of motion, like Estrella, forms rounded shapes, like the letter “S”. She can move easily through all her vertebrae. When her tail is gently squeezed, she immediately pulls it out of our grip. This is consistent with what our presentation staff tell us about her; Estrella tightly wraps herself around the waist of the person handling her.

Compared to Estrella, Esteban shows a much more limited range of comfortable positions. There are two areas that he always seems reluctant to bend. Esteban has a pain in the neck and a pain in the tail. His tail is also weakened. When gently squeezed, he had almost no reaction at all. When placed on the floor, he could not flex his tail to move. Instead, he had to ‘caterpillar’ the lower part of his body, contracting his muscles to scoot along rather than undulating.

Esteban is showing signs of arthritis! There is some good news for the short term. We will begin giving him anti-inflammatory medication that will reduce the tissue swelling around the arthritic area, and give him back much of his comfort and ability to move. He should stop losing strength and perhaps make some gains.

Unfortunately, this is a progressive condition that can’t reverse itself and that will eventually get worse over time. With good care, we hope that Esteban will be happy and comfortable for years to come.


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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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Snake Eyes

Over the last few months, Animal Care staff noticed something a little funny about one of our boa constrictors. Esteban’s eye appeared cloudy, as though a thin white film were covering part of his eye and pupil. While snakes normally experience a brief period before shedding when their eyes cloud over and are nearly opaque, the rest of the time they are usually bright, shiny and clear.


When we brought him to The Center for Bird and Exotic Animal Medicine (BEAM), Dr. Maas used a bright, narrow beam light to pinpoint the source of the clouding. To our relief, it was not deep in the eye like a cataract, but right on the surface of the eye.


To understand what we did next, it is necessary to understand a bit of snake eye anatomy. Snakes are well known for their unblinking stare, and in fact snakes are unable to blink. Their eyelids are greatly modified, into a fused, clear covering over the eye, called a spectacle or eye cap.

This cap is strong enough that snakes can strike their prey, swim, slide through underbrush, and in some species use their heads for digging, all without blinking and without damage to their eyes. The spectacle itself may be scuffed up in the course of daily activities, but luckily it is shed when the snake sheds its skin, so it is always being replaced by a newer, clear covering.


Snakes’ eyes are mobile, and to allow this, there is a layer of liquid, like our tears, between the eye itself and the spectacle. Our concern was that if the eye were infected, bacteria would grow in that liquid layer, and be the source of the clouding.

To see what was going on with Esteban’s eye, Dr. Maas carefully inserted a very small needle between the spectacle and the eye, and removed a small amount of this liquid for testing. What he found was reassuring.


Esteban has no sign of infection in his eye tissue. Most likely, he produced excess protein due to a minor injury, or slight inflammation, and the cloudiness will take care of itself in the next few sheds. If not, we will need to inject minute amounts of anti-inflammatories into the space around Esteban’s eye – not a task for the faint of heart.


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Frequently Asked Questions

Frequently Asked Question #1: Can I ask you a question?


Answer: Yes! Please – ask another!

Animal Caretakers get asked a lot of questions – a lot of good questions! Here are some of our most popular.




FAQ #2: Are those snakes poisonous?


Answer: No, our snakes are not venomous. All of our snakes are constrictors, which means they squeeze their prey to death before they eat them. Our snakes don’t have to squeeze their food to death because we give them previously frozen rats. Dead prey is safer for the snakes because it can’t fight back and potentially injure them. Still, our constrictors squeeze their prey instinctively.

FAQ #3: Do you feed the naked mole-rats to the snakes?


Answer: No. The naked mole-rats are kept completely separate from the boa constrictors. Even though naked mole-rats sometimes die naturally, and the snakes would probably find them pretty tasty, we feel that we would be crossing a morbid line to offer our naked mole-rats up as food.

FAQ #4: Don’t sea anemones sting?


Answer: Not our Puget Sound sea anemones. You may feel a mild stickiness when you touch the anemone’s tentacles but that’s all. If you were a tiny sea creature, that stickiness would feel like a sting.

FAQ #5: Do naked mole-rats eat their babies? I think I saw one eating a baby!


Answer: Perhaps what you saw was a mole-rat eating a carrot? Unlike pet hamsters and other rodents in captivity, mole-rats rarely resort to cannibalism. In fact, when a mole-rat dies, it is more likely that the colony members bury them in the bedding.

FAQ #6: Are those the cockroaches they eat on “Fear Factor?”


Answer: Yes [sigh]. Madagascar Hissing Cockroaches are said to be delicious and high in protein. Some cultures consider them a delicacy. But we would never eat just any insect without thorough knowledge of its safety. Some insects are toxic and they all carry germs!

FAQ#7: How do the naked mole-rats know that the potty chamber is their bathroom? They can’t read the sign!


Answer: What do you think? Do you have a cat? Does she go in a litter box? Have you noticed dogs like to go where other dogs have gone? It’s because of the smell, right? And if you look closely, you’ll notice our naked mole rat potty chambers are isolated with only one entrance. This keeps the smelly room away from their living areas. Mole-rats have an excellent sense of smell!

FAQ #8: Will the hermit crab bite me?


Answer: Well, it won’t bite you … but it may pinch you, and then just enough to hold on. It’s more likely that when you pick up a hermit crab, the little critter will scurry back into his shell. It’s afraid of you!

FAQ #9: Where is the naked mole-rats’ water bottle? My hamster has a water bottle in his cage.


Answer: They don’t need a water bottle or dish. Naked mole-rats live underground in dry desert conditions. They have adapted to get all their moisture from their food. Because they live in cramped tunnels, the humidity is very high. Their need for moisture is not the same as your hamster.

FAQ # 10: What are these things? Axo …??


Answer: Axolotls, “ak-suh-lot-l.” Although they look like big tadpoles, axolotls are actually amphibians that never go through metamorphosis. You probably won’t find them in the wild – they come from areas of Mexico that are heavily populated and they are nearly extinct in nature. Axolotls are studied for their ability to regenerate their limbs.

Any other questions?


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It’s all part of the job!

By Sarah Moore, Life Sciences Manager

Once in a while, an appointment on my calendar is so bizarre that even I wonder what kind of job I signed up for. This whole week is full of them. This week, I will “walk around picking up trash”, and check to make sure that the “butterfly cart gets restocked”. In one wacky day I have a 9:00 am “wild oceans adventure” a 10:00 am “discuss cockroach pigment with Brigid” and a 10:30 am “mist snake heads with Holly”. I end the week with “mole-rat cam follow up”.




So what do all these silly meeting topics really mean? Some of them are fairly mundane. Walk around picking up garbage is just that. Each week, a team led by our horticulture staff, Jeff and Maida, walks the grounds, cleaning up litter. We like to keep things looking their best. Some trends we have noted: people are becoming more conscientious about correctly disposing of food wrappers and bags. However, smokers, gum chewers and dog walkers can make a huge difference by packing out their litter.


Our Tropical Butterfly House is full of lovely butterflies, each with a brief but glorious two week life span. When they die, many butterfly’s wings are still colorful and pretty. Rather than destroy these intact and valuable items, we prepare them for a second existence in our Butterfly Discovery Cart, where children get to observe, appreciate, and even touch a butterfly wing.


Wild Oceans Adventure is a summer camp offered by our camp program. One of the activities campers get to enjoy is watching and participating in a tide pool feeding. Kids learn how animals eat in the wild, how we care for them here, and how to be a respectful guest next time the visit a beach.


Why on earth am I discussing cockroach pigment? There is a rumor among new staff and volunteers, that our Madagascar hissing cockroaches get more pigment and grow darker as they age. No one knows where this unverified fact began. Since it is essentially a new hypothesis, we don’t have any data on whether it is true. Brigid, who supervises our Discovery Corps program is interested in running an experiment to see what really happens.


Holly, our Presentation Supervisor, and I have been tasked with analyzing our snake handling practices, to make sure we have all possible safety measures in place. Since we know that most snake bites are related to feeding accidents, we wanted to develop a clear protocol to let snakes know when they were going to be handled but not fed. One way to do this is to lightly mist water on the snake’s face before handling. This may sound unpleasant, but our snakes relish water in nearly any form, and would develop a pleasant, but non-food related association between a refreshing mist of water and an upcoming presentation. This is in theory. Holly and I want to prototype the process and see how the snakes really react before letting our staff do it.

I’m going to let my last appointment, “discuss mole-rat cam” hang out there as a teaser for now. This article is already long enough, and I hope to have a full story on the cam in the near future.
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Urchins AND Snakes!!

This morning, Life Sciences' Sarah Moore and Brianna Todd appeared on KING 5 TV's "New Day Northwest." In addition to green sea urchins, the live television audience got to visit with Esteban, our boa constrictor. Here's the clip!


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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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It's Official!

The corn snake formerly known as "Hey You" now has a name. Thanks to all the loyal readers who participated in our recent naming contest here and on Facebook. The winning name is ...

NACHO

Here is the vote count:

Nacho 15
Checkers/Patches 11
Fluffy 2
Mobius 2
Sir William Biscuit 2
Harry Potter related names 3
Houdini 2
Other write-ins (1 vote each) 9

Some of our mathematically gifted readers may notice that out of 27 replies we ended up with 46 votes. Life Sciences Manager Sarah Moore explains:

“I took some liberties here. For example some people voted more than once, saying in effect ‘I nominate the following write-in name but if you don’t use that, my preference among the offered choices is …X.’ In that case I counted both votes. I also included several votes that came to by other methods than the blog. Most families ended up all voting for the same name, and I counted all the votes. I’m honored that there were family discussions on this subject and I’m happy to give votes to those too young to post on our blog. I bundled together very similar names.”


No matter how we look at it, the people have spoken. Our new corn snake will henceforth and forever be known as Nacho!

The food photograph of nachos has been adapted from one in the public domain.

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How We Feed Our Snakes

If you visit the boa constrictor and corn snake cages at Pacific Science Center, you will notice a blank area on each animal’s sign, where we write in their next feeding time. When the time approaches, we inevitably attract some loyal fans, as well as new guests eager to see what will happen. This article will try to give you a sense of what you might expect to see and learn at a snake feeding.

Warning – This following article contains a graphic descriptions of eating whole rats!


The first thing most people notice is how infrequently the snakes eat. Our boa constrictors eat once a week and our corn snakes eat once every 2 weeks. In fact, they could go much longer between meals and occasionally a perfectly healthy snake will refuse food for several feedings in a row. However, we generally see refusal of food as a warning of other possible problems.

There are no known vegetarian snakes; all eat either some kind of animal or eggs or both. We feed our corn snakes mice and our boa constrictors mice or rats. All of our snakes are constrictors, which means they use their bodies to wrap around prey animals and suffocate them.


In captivity, it is wise to feed snakes a prey that has already been killed. Live prey can fight back and injure the snake, sometimes quite badly. Or if the snake is not hungry, the caretaker can be injured while taking out an uneaten –and angry – prey animal.

Note: We do not kill the rats and mice that we offer our snakes. They are shipped to us frozen, after being humanely euthanized.


A snake that has been fed killed prey her entire life may still strike at her food, as it is instinctive for them. This is scary. The snake slams into the food with her mouth open, seizing it and holding it while she constricts. It can take up to several minutes before she relaxes her hold. If our Animal Care staff seems jittery during feeding, it may be because it is very hard not to have a reflexive reaction when this happens.


Because of their unique anatomy, snakes swallow their prey whole. They usually start at the nose of their prey, which allows for a more streamlined swallowing of limbs than starting at the other end. Snake jaws have a unique ability to separate to allow them to open wide enough. They can continue to breathe while swallowing thanks to the placement of the epiglottis on the lower part of the mouth. The snake’s teeth are too pointed and delicate for chewing, but their backward curve helps them to push the food backward. Snakes surround their food with a thick mucous as they swallow. This helps protect their throats from being abraded by they hair and claws of their victim.


Once the snake finishes eating, we give them at least three days off to digest. They are not scheduled for demonstrations and we handle them only when they need cleaning or medical attention. Swallowing food whole is hard work and they need plenty of time to rest afterwards.


If you’d like to see a snake feeding live and in person, come visit us at Pacific Science Center. Snake feedings are generally scheduled for Saturday, Sunday, and Wednesday afternoons. But please remember these are live animals and we can’t always guarantee that they will eat as scheduled.

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