Speaker 1: Welcome to Creature feature production of iHeartRadio. I'm your host
Speaker 1: of Many Parasites, Katie Golden. I studied psychology and evolutionary biology,
Speaker 1: and today on the show we have a special episode
Speaker 1: because I get to talk to someone from a zoo. Now,
Speaker 1: this happens to be a human being, so we will
Speaker 1: be able to have a nice conversation. There's some really
Speaker 1: exciting news coming out from the Philadelphia Zoo and I
Speaker 1: am very pleased to have with me today Lauren Augustine,
Speaker 1: who is the director of Herpetology at the Philadelphia Zoo. Lauren,
Speaker 1: welcome to the show.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for having me. I'm very excited
Speaker 2: to talk to you guys today.
Speaker 1: I am. I'm super excited about this news. I don't
Speaker 1: know if my listeners have heard it. But first, Lauren,
Speaker 1: tell us just a little bit about yourself. What's your
Speaker 1: role at the zoo and what kinds of animals do
Speaker 1: you work with?
Speaker 3: From the director of her photology, her patology is a
Speaker 3: study of the creepy crawley so reptiles and amphibians, of course,
Speaker 3: and so my job is to oversee the collection here
Speaker 3: at the zoo, their animal care, the staff that take
Speaker 3: care of them, and then are conservation programs that are
Speaker 3: linked to those very special species.
Speaker 1: I think this is something that's key when it comes
Speaker 1: to zoos because there's so like as a visitor, you
Speaker 1: get to see the animals and maybe you get to
Speaker 1: see some of the presentations that happen at the zoo,
Speaker 1: but there's a lot of stuff that's happening behind the scenes,
Speaker 1: especially when it comes to conservation. So in addition to
Speaker 1: actually taking care of the individuals at the zoo, taking
Speaker 1: care of their health, their diet, there's also larger conservation efforts.
Speaker 1: So you may have a species of animals that is
Speaker 1: not doing so well in the wild. I imagine this
Speaker 1: is pretty common in herpetology, especially with amphibians, and so
Speaker 1: you also have a lot of efforts to actually help
Speaker 1: animals that are out in the wild or preserve species
Speaker 1: that are endangered.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we do that in a lot of different ways.
Speaker 3: We're really fortunate in her petology we get a large
Speaker 3: diversity of species and so they come with a lot
Speaker 3: of different needs. Sometimes we can meet those needs for
Speaker 3: the species at our institution or through the collaboration with
Speaker 3: other institutions, but a lot of times we are looking
Speaker 3: at managing those conservation efforts in the field with collaborators
Speaker 3: or directly through leading research projects, and so we get
Speaker 3: a lot of different avenues to contribute to species conservation
Speaker 3: through a modern zoo that takes a conservation first approach.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's fantastic. So let's get right into the exciting
Speaker 1: news you have. Mommy, the Galapagis tortoise has an announcement
Speaker 1: to make. Lauren will be the one to transmit that announcement.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're very excited.
Speaker 3: Mommy's been at the zoo since nineteen thirty two and recently, Yeah,
Speaker 3: we are proud to announce that she is a mommy.
Speaker 3: Mommy has sixteen babies that hatched earlier this year from
Speaker 3: two different clutches or groups of eggs that she laid
Speaker 3: last winter.
Speaker 1: That's incredible. How old is mommy?
Speaker 3: So we estimate mommies around ninety seven years old, but
Speaker 3: we don't know. She came right in nineteen thirty two,
Speaker 3: so she's been at the zoo a very long time.
Speaker 2: Ninety two years.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's so she's at least ninety two years old,
Speaker 1: if not, who knows a decade old?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, undready. Yeah, but is this a.
Speaker 1: So, is this a miracle Galapago's tortoise or is this
Speaker 1: something that Galapagos tortoises can do in the wild give
Speaker 1: birth at such an old age.
Speaker 3: This is something they can do in the wild, give
Speaker 3: birth to such an old age. What's so amazing about
Speaker 3: Mommy's story is that this is her first time. So
Speaker 3: the fact that she hasn't reproduced until this age is
Speaker 3: what's so incredible, and that it went so successfully really
Speaker 3: is a testament to the long term care of that animal.
Speaker 3: Right She's been in our in our care for over
Speaker 3: ninety years, and so it's just a really great story
Speaker 3: for Philadelphia.
Speaker 1: That's fantastic. And I would assume this isn't the first
Speaker 1: time that you guys have tried having her breed. It's
Speaker 1: just this is the first time she's actually produced a
Speaker 1: clutch of eggs.
Speaker 3: So with Mommy, the interesting story for Galopagos tortuses in
Speaker 3: general is that in the early nineties we did some
Speaker 3: genetics work to identify the different species from different islands,
Speaker 3: and so when we found out that Mommy was a
Speaker 3: Western Santa Cruz Galopagos tortoise, we went through the process
Speaker 3: working with our association to bring in a mail for her.
Speaker 3: So we wanted to make sure we are breeding and
Speaker 3: maintain that genetic lineage for that island species. And so
Speaker 3: we had to get a Braso here who came from
Speaker 3: the Riverbank Zoo to pair with her because he is
Speaker 3: also a western Santa Cruise Island Galopagos tortoise. And so
Speaker 3: that is the process of working collaboratively to maintain those
Speaker 3: those really important genetics.
Speaker 1: Right, because you can't you can't just take sort of
Speaker 1: there's a bunch of different populations of Galapagos tortoises, and
Speaker 1: so if you got a different Galapagos tortoise, they might
Speaker 1: be able to set successfully mate, but then you don't
Speaker 1: have that same wild lineage that you're looking to preserve, right, correct,
Speaker 1: So that is so exciting. So how often do Galapagos
Speaker 1: tortoises mate like, both in the wild and also in captivity.
Speaker 3: So here at the zoo, because we are in a
Speaker 3: temperate climate, right, it gets colder in the winter, we
Speaker 3: have to bring the tortoises in. So every winter we
Speaker 3: actually separate the male of braso from the females just
Speaker 3: because of space and for a lot of other reasons.
Speaker 3: So every spring we reintroduce them together, and so there
Speaker 3: is breeding every year, the same thing in the wild.
Speaker 3: As they come across each other in the wild and
Speaker 3: through territories during breeding season, they will breed, so it's.
Speaker 2: An annual event.
Speaker 3: And then mommy laid actually three clutches of eggs her
Speaker 3: first year that she produced eggs for us since meeting
Speaker 3: a braso, and so they will lay eggs every year also,
Speaker 3: So she did lay three clutches her first year, and
Speaker 3: then two clutches this past year that resulted in these
Speaker 3: sixteen babies.
Speaker 1: It's because from my understanding of Galapago's tortoises is that
Speaker 1: they it is tricky to get them to actually produce offspring,
Speaker 1: particularly in captivity. Is it that the because it sounds
Speaker 1: like the mating itself happens with some frequency, but actually
Speaker 1: producing a clutch of eggs that are successful seems more rare.
Speaker 3: There are so many factors that go into the successful
Speaker 3: reproduction of a species in human care, and especially with
Speaker 3: reptiles and amphibians. So sorry, I'm going to call out
Speaker 3: that my tax are the best all the time, but
Speaker 3: we have so many things that influence the success of
Speaker 3: that reproduction, and it's not just one thing, so they're
Speaker 3: all playing off of each other and it can be
Speaker 3: very complex. So we have to consider the lifespan of
Speaker 3: the individual, their age at the time of reduction, and
Speaker 3: then their care, the UV light that they've been provided,
Speaker 3: their nutritional status, their health status in general. All of
Speaker 3: this plays into success. Also their stress levels, right, so
Speaker 3: if they can't if they are nutritionally deficient in some way,
Speaker 3: their eggs might not be fit to hatch. If they're not,
Speaker 3: if they're overly stressed, they might hold onto those eggs
Speaker 3: and and affect the hatch rate by not laying them
Speaker 3: right away, or even the developmental rates. So there's so
Speaker 3: many facets to this, which is why this is so impressive,
Speaker 3: because it shows that Mommy's care over the decades has
Speaker 3: been very good, that her stress levels are likely pretty low.
Speaker 3: I mean, all animals encounter stress, right, but we have
Speaker 3: this beautiful outdoor yard. We were able to give her
Speaker 3: in a braso the ability to interact should they choose,
Speaker 3: but her the ability to get away from those interactions
Speaker 3: if she wants to.
Speaker 1: Appropriates every important important in every relationship.
Speaker 2: Yes, exactly, choice alone time. Choice. Yeah.
Speaker 3: So just the fact that she has appropriate nesting sites
Speaker 3: that she likes them as well. You know, we as
Speaker 3: humans can say, oh, this is great nesting for a
Speaker 3: Galapagos tortoise, but she might not agree. So knowing that
Speaker 3: we were able to provide her with those things that
Speaker 3: resulted in the success yeats, it's definitely a complicated process.
Speaker 3: And then of course the incubation of the eggs is
Speaker 3: just adds on to it. And now the rearing of
Speaker 3: the offspring. I mean nothing about this is simple.
Speaker 1: So how do Galapagos tortoises in the wild incubate their eggs?
Speaker 1: And is there a difference between the wild because of
Speaker 1: course you're not on that Galapagos islands, so you can't
Speaker 1: completely recreate those conditions. So then how do you do
Speaker 1: it at the zooke compared to wild incubation?
Speaker 3: Great question. And so these guys are whole nesters. So
Speaker 3: they'll dig a hole and they'll deposit a clutch of
Speaker 3: eggs or a group of eggs into the hole and
Speaker 3: then they'll bury it back up and then they're done.
Speaker 3: The eggs will incubate in the ground in the wild.
Speaker 3: At a zoological institution, in general, we will dig up
Speaker 3: the eggs and artificially incubate them. So one of the
Speaker 3: major reasons we do that for galopagos tortoises is that
Speaker 3: they have temperature sex determination, and so the temperature that
Speaker 3: the eggs are incubated will determine the sex of the offspring.
Speaker 3: So this is a really important part of their biology
Speaker 3: that helps us as population managers. Now I can control
Speaker 3: the number of males and the number of females I'm
Speaker 3: putting into the population, which is an amazing asset when
Speaker 3: you have a smaller population in a zoological institutions. And
Speaker 3: so we do retrieve those eggs, but it also gives
Speaker 3: us the opportunity to track their development and see where
Speaker 3: and if we have challenges, what the problem or the cause.
Speaker 2: Of those challenges might be for next time.
Speaker 3: So we do need to track very carefully the environment
Speaker 3: that we give these eggs. So temperature and humidity are
Speaker 3: two key factors that we monitor very closely when incubating eggs.
Speaker 3: But then we're able to track through the four month incubation.
Speaker 3: It was a very long incubation the development of these eggs.
Speaker 3: You know, try to troubleshoot any challenges and then wait
Speaker 3: for these babies to emerge what was in a very
Speaker 3: exciting moment.
Speaker 1: So when like little baby birds are born, they will
Speaker 1: kind of knock their way out of the egg with
Speaker 1: their little they got a little ridge on their beak
Speaker 1: and egg tooth. How hard is it for these little
Speaker 1: baby Globuka's tortoises to get out?
Speaker 2: They also have an egg tooth.
Speaker 3: So reptiles have an egg tooth, yep, and they use
Speaker 3: that to break through their eggshell. Yeah, and these tortoises,
Speaker 3: they'll we call it pipping the first moment that they
Speaker 3: break through the egg shell and then that's a yeah,
Speaker 3: it's so cute. And then they did just stay in
Speaker 3: the egg for a couple almost a week before they
Speaker 3: fully emerge and hatch.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's really cute.
Speaker 1: It's a lot of work. I don't blame them, So
Speaker 1: you know, you gotta take a breather after you're hacking
Speaker 1: your way out of an egg. This is something that
Speaker 1: I have talked about on the show a little bit,
Speaker 1: which is the as I get a question a lot
Speaker 1: from especially women, which is like it seems really silly
Speaker 1: as placental mammals that we carry pregnancies and it's a
Speaker 1: huge headache, and I very much sympathize with this, So
Speaker 1: then why don't we as humans just lay eggs like
Speaker 1: so many other animals do? And I think it's a
Speaker 1: really interesting thing you bring up with the things like
Speaker 1: changes in temperature and humidity, how much the environment impacts
Speaker 1: the eggs. So one kind of cool thing that plus
Speaker 1: intal animals did was that we create like a kind
Speaker 1: of miniature environment for our offspring, which we can control.
Speaker 1: As warm blooded animals, we control the temperature just like
Speaker 1: you kind of do with incubating these eggs. I just
Speaker 1: find that kind of this is kind of a cool
Speaker 1: example of why there is a bit of a trade
Speaker 1: off the eggs. Yes, they can usually have more offspring
Speaker 1: at once. Maybe Galapaco's tortoises don't have as many offspring
Speaker 1: at one time, but there are plenty of egg laying
Speaker 1: animals that have so many offsering all at once. But
Speaker 1: you can't control that environment as well, and so if
Speaker 1: you have if you're a species of animal that likes
Speaker 1: to invest a lot into one offspring, laying an egg
Speaker 1: usually doesn't make as much sense or comes with more
Speaker 1: risks when you're versus having the baby born live. So
Speaker 1: that's just kind of a cool kind of application of
Speaker 1: some evolutionary biology ideas. But in terms of the rarity
Speaker 1: of Galapagos tortoises, why is it so difficult to breed
Speaker 1: them and why are they relatively rare in the wild
Speaker 1: as well.
Speaker 3: Glapa ghost tortoises are critically endangered species, and they're island species,
Speaker 3: and so it's really important to remember when you're an
Speaker 3: island species that your populations are innately at a higher
Speaker 3: level of threat because anything, a storm could come and
Speaker 3: wipe out your population. The biggest threats usually to these
Speaker 3: island species are human human impacts such as you know,
Speaker 3: habitat degradation, but also invasive species. And so because they
Speaker 3: have such a limited range and they're naturally smaller populations,
Speaker 3: they are at a high risk of extinction, and so
Speaker 3: that's why they are critically endangered. They are challenging to breed,
Speaker 3: I think in the United States because we have to
Speaker 3: move them around and they are very large animals, and
Speaker 3: we have to get the right animals together in the
Speaker 3: right conditions. You know, reptiles are very seasonally driven their reproduction,
Speaker 3: and so being able to provide them the right habitats,
Speaker 3: the right social dynamics, and the right, care is not
Speaker 3: always very simple, so and moving you know, Brazos almost
Speaker 3: four hundred pounds, moving him to Philadelphia was not an
Speaker 3: easy feat. So that was probably the hardest part of
Speaker 3: breeding these guys, to be honest. But they are a
Speaker 3: very long lived species, which gives us a long opportunity
Speaker 3: for each individual to get their genetics represented. So that
Speaker 3: is one of the fortunate parts of the Galopagos toward
Speaker 3: us and their biology.
Speaker 1: That is the that is so interesting to me. How
Speaker 1: I mean, I think we kind of as humans, we
Speaker 1: tend to think about things in terms of our own lives, right,
Speaker 1: so where we go through menopause and we know are
Speaker 1: no longer fertile when we're seniors, so then to see
Speaker 1: an animal like this, it just seems so strange to us.
Speaker 1: But there's not necessarily our perspective, right of us going
Speaker 1: through like having a long live span, but then having
Speaker 1: a long chunk of our live span where we're not
Speaker 1: fertilely reproductive is not necessarily the main blueprint for a
Speaker 1: lot of animals. A lot of animals have really short
Speaker 1: life spans and they're fertile for most of that lifespan.
Speaker 1: The kind of the species that we do see in
Speaker 1: the wild that have long life spans like we do,
Speaker 1: and a long chunk of that lifespan where we're not
Speaker 1: usually is another social species. So you know, for instance, elephants, Right,
Speaker 1: so you have a lot of matriarchs there that may
Speaker 1: no longer be producing offspring, but they're helping out the
Speaker 1: youngsters who don't know what they're doing. So it's so
Speaker 1: the fact that this tortoise is able to it has
Speaker 1: such a long lifespan, but it also remains fertile. It's
Speaker 1: not that it is weird. It's that we have a
Speaker 1: specific kind of interesting biological clock which is not shared
Speaker 1: by all animals on earth, particularly not necessarily by reptiles.
Speaker 3: Yeah, what's really fascinating. They've done some research on crocodiles
Speaker 3: and what helps the longevity of their fertility is that
Speaker 3: they can shut their systems down, so we won't see
Speaker 3: the same hormone spikes seasonally in a singly housed female
Speaker 3: crocodile that we will see in a crocodile that's set
Speaker 3: up with a male and that is reproducing. They can
Speaker 3: shut their systems down, which can make them last longer. Right,
Speaker 3: So for example, well, mommy didn't lay eggs for twenty years, right,
Speaker 3: she didn't go through the process her being paired up
Speaker 3: with a braso. The social interactions that is what started
Speaker 3: her cycling again and got her laying eggs and moving forward.
Speaker 3: So I think that's a really interesting part of it,
Speaker 3: like an ectotherms biology, that these animals can kind of
Speaker 3: turn it off and turn it on, which helps it
Speaker 3: be a little bit of a longer lifespan.
Speaker 1: That is amazing. I mean, it's and it's something that
Speaker 1: is coming from like a social cueue, which is so
Speaker 1: interesting where you can have these hormones kind of like
Speaker 1: activated because she sees a male, not because she's there's
Speaker 1: something in the water or her diet has changed necessarily,
Speaker 1: although diet changes can also affect fertility for sure. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I another reason to be jealous of reptile
Speaker 1: is that the control they have over their production. But
Speaker 1: you do you see that in other species. You see
Speaker 1: that actually in case gurus have some control over their
Speaker 1: reproduction that you know. Sometimes it's like, you know, I'm
Speaker 1: just not feeling so I'm going to freeze the development
Speaker 1: of this embryo until I feel like things are cool
Speaker 1: for me to have a baby, which is, you know,
Speaker 1: if only, if only, we could be like that. But
Speaker 1: that's that's so interesting. So that sounds like, given that
Speaker 1: they are so their reproductive cycle, it's not like human
Speaker 1: women where you know, during our reproductive years, unless we
Speaker 1: use medical intervention, medication, we just have to have our
Speaker 1: periods no matter what. They have some that they're able
Speaker 1: to shut that off. So that seems like that could
Speaker 1: be another potential challenge thought at a zoo because they
Speaker 1: if they're not sensing, if they're not you know, getting
Speaker 1: sort of the cues that this is a good time
Speaker 1: to be reproductively active, they may not be reproductively active.
Speaker 1: Are are there kind of ways like are there challenges
Speaker 1: to actually like kind of convince her that, like, hey,
Speaker 1: now's a good time to mate or to be reproductively active.
Speaker 3: I actually think this is a totally fascinating part of
Speaker 3: our jobs is that we really don't know a lot
Speaker 3: about the social behavior of reptiles, and we're learning a
Speaker 3: lot thanks to zoological institutions, and so some of the
Speaker 3: research I've been doing on turtle breeding in general suggests
Speaker 3: that the over attention of a male, so the males
Speaker 3: don't just go breathe with the female one time, right.
Speaker 3: They are very insistent and often there's a huge ritual
Speaker 3: of nudging and mounting and circling that takes place as
Speaker 3: courtship prior to copulation. And then this constant attention from
Speaker 3: the males is anecdotally linked in some species to the
Speaker 3: reproductive output of a female, so not just sparking the
Speaker 3: female to cycle, but actually the outcome of those eggs.
Speaker 3: And so that's a really interesting part of our jobs
Speaker 3: because a lot of people would see that also as stressful.
Speaker 2: Right, this male is hounding this female. In the wild,
Speaker 2: he would come through.
Speaker 3: Her territory, breathe with her and then move on. But
Speaker 3: in a zoo, maybe she's his only potential mate. They're
Speaker 3: sharing a habitat and a territory, and so he's constantly
Speaker 3: breeding and reproducing with her, and so there's that stress aspect,
Speaker 3: but also the aspect of that Potentially that's what is
Speaker 3: going to lead to success. And so I think one
Speaker 3: of the things that we're very fortunate about here in
Speaker 3: Philly is that we have this large outdoor yard. We
Speaker 3: have two go up and goos females as well as
Speaker 3: two aldabra females. In with a braso so that he
Speaker 3: can share his attention. When we did the first introductions,
Speaker 3: we did observe them and do a behavioral ethogram, So
Speaker 3: we had staff watching and observing a braso where was
Speaker 3: he spending his time because we were very concerned of
Speaker 3: mommy and mommy getting stressed out at her older age,
Speaker 3: and Abraso did selectively choose to spend most of his
Speaker 3: time breeding with mommy, but he did spread out the
Speaker 3: love and we didn't see a lot of signs of
Speaker 3: stress or indicators that we would want to separate those animals.
Speaker 3: And so a lot of like really interesting social behavior
Speaker 3: stuff that we really are just now on the cusp
Speaker 3: of learning and reptiles is really fascinating.
Speaker 1: I mean, that seems to be quite like that's the
Speaker 1: over many many years, like hundreds of years of having zoos,
Speaker 1: that seems to be one of the major shifts in
Speaker 1: terms of modern zoos, which is understanding that the behaviors
Speaker 1: of animals in captivity. You can't just copy and paste
Speaker 1: animals from the wild, put them in captivity and then
Speaker 1: have their behaviors all be the same. Like a lot
Speaker 1: of misunderstandings about animal behavior comes from studying animals in
Speaker 1: captivity because it's so much easier to study animals in captivity,
Speaker 1: and it's I'm completely for researching animals in captivity because
Speaker 1: it's a great opportunity for conservation and understanding animal behavior.
Speaker 1: But what the mistakes that we used to make were
Speaker 1: assuming that you know, you can have like a pack
Speaker 1: animal or a migratory animal, or or or you know,
Speaker 1: a tortoise with a really long lifespan and a large
Speaker 1: area and then see the exact same behaviors in the
Speaker 1: zoo that you would see in the wild. So I
Speaker 1: think it is I think it's really important to know that,
Speaker 1: like you know, today, like in zoo's I think there's
Speaker 1: a lot more awareness of like, all right, we even
Speaker 1: if we can't completely recreate the Galapagos Island within the zoo,
Speaker 1: having the awareness of, like, okay, what are these sorts
Speaker 1: of stressors that these animals might feel, particularly with social animals,
Speaker 1: where you know, might you might see aggression in social
Speaker 1: animals that are usually a lot more chill in the
Speaker 1: wild when they don't have time alone from each other.
Speaker 1: And so it's from my perspective, it seems like we've
Speaker 1: gone from maybe misunder standing these things many many years
Speaker 1: ago to now caretakers and researchers in zoos being really
Speaker 1: aware of, Okay, we need to create an environment that
Speaker 1: is not stressful for this animal and then to understand
Speaker 1: why there might be conflicts among species in zoos. And
Speaker 1: I think because I think when people think about reptiles,
Speaker 1: they don't think of them as being particularly social, right,
Speaker 1: Like they see a crocodile, it's like, well, it's just
Speaker 1: sitting there, it's not talking to anyone, it's not groomed,
Speaker 1: they're not grooming each other, so they don't seem particular Like,
Speaker 1: I think it's easier to understand this concept when it
Speaker 1: comes to maybe primates or something, right because you see
Speaker 1: their social behaviors that are much more like our own.
Speaker 1: But would you say, like in the herpetology department, like,
Speaker 1: are there a lot of considerations made in terms of
Speaker 1: the social lives of these animals.
Speaker 3: So I think one of the things I've loved seeing
Speaker 3: as I've worked through my career and moved institutions, is
Speaker 3: that one we're not just offering more naturalistic habitats and
Speaker 3: trying to elicit more natural behaviors, but we're also using
Speaker 3: non natural.
Speaker 2: Things to get the same output. Right, it doesn't really
Speaker 2: matter how I.
Speaker 3: Get the natural behavior as long as I'm listening it
Speaker 3: because it's something that's healthy for the animal. And so
Speaker 3: that's where enrichment and training are coming in to our care.
Speaker 3: And I think the biggest thing for reptile keepers and
Speaker 3: fimmin keepers is to first say, we don't actually know
Speaker 3: and they communicate in very different ways in us. So,
Speaker 3: like you said, it's very easy for me to look
Speaker 3: at a primate and recognize play behavior or social behaviors,
Speaker 3: but not so easy on a snake that's very old,
Speaker 3: factory or using pheromones for a lot of it's communication.
Speaker 2: I can't possibly evaluate that right.
Speaker 3: So all I can do is use my observations and
Speaker 3: develop metrics for evaluation that help us learn more and
Speaker 3: collect data and then collaborate with other institutions that might
Speaker 3: be seeing something similar or have maybe another a larger
Speaker 3: sample size on that species. So I think it's one
Speaker 3: of the most exciting parts of our job is that
Speaker 3: we're able to fill gaps in data on these species
Speaker 3: that otherwise would be unattainable.
Speaker 1: Are there other endangered species that you are breeding at
Speaker 1: the Zoo, either within the Herpetology department or even outside
Speaker 1: of the Herpetology department. Is this sort of is mommy
Speaker 1: really especialness is like kind of a unique event or
Speaker 1: do you have this breeding of endangered species happening in
Speaker 1: other areas of the zoo.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: No, we breed a lot of endangered species here at
Speaker 3: the Philadelphia Zoo. In the Reptile department specifically, we have
Speaker 3: a lot of different we call them species survival plans.
Speaker 3: They're the way we collaborate in North America in the
Speaker 3: Association of Zoos and Aquaria to move animals around, like
Speaker 3: we moved to Braso here to have ideal genetic genetic pairings.
Speaker 2: And so we have Vietnamese.
Speaker 3: Box turtles that we're working on breeding. We recently hashed
Speaker 3: a dwarf crocodile. We have Chinese crocodile lizards. We have
Speaker 3: a lot of different species, a lot of different critically
Speaker 3: endangered species.
Speaker 2: That we're working on breeding here at the Zoo.
Speaker 3: To develop these genetically sustainable populations, but are then available
Speaker 3: for education for research, and then of course we collaborate
Speaker 3: in the field with a lot of them as well,
Speaker 3: and so they can be representatives for their species here
Speaker 3: at the zoo. We had an orangutan born a few
Speaker 3: years ago. Yeah, so we do. We work with a
Speaker 3: lot of different endangered species here and sometimes our role
Speaker 3: is just to house them until they're old enough to breed,
Speaker 3: and then we work with the Species Survival Plan to
Speaker 3: move animals around and sometimes our job is to pair
Speaker 3: them up and breed them. So it just depends on
Speaker 3: the species and the populations need at the time.
Speaker 1: For instance, for the baby Galapagos tortoises, are these going
Speaker 1: to are they all going to remain in your care?
Speaker 1: Are they going to go to other institutions? My sense
Speaker 1: is that it's usually conservation, where you have breeding programs.
Speaker 1: For releasing into the wild is usually quite different because
Speaker 1: the problem is if you have a species that you
Speaker 1: have at zoo that you're raising, is that it's not
Speaker 1: going to know necessarily how to survive. So you don't
Speaker 1: want to just send tortoise out there it's like, all right,
Speaker 1: good luck, and then it might not thrive.
Speaker 2: So what.
Speaker 1: Happens to these baby endangered animals after they're born.
Speaker 3: That's such a good question because we're actually fortunate reptiles
Speaker 3: and amphibians that we can have a direct release right
Speaker 3: As you mentioned, egg laying species generally have a lot
Speaker 3: of offspring, and so we use a technique called headstarting,
Speaker 3: where we can rear the juvenile animal in captivity until
Speaker 3: it's a certain size and then release it. It has
Speaker 3: a much higher chance of success in the wild because obviously,
Speaker 3: for instance, tabpoles have a high rate of predation and
Speaker 3: mortality in the wild.
Speaker 2: That's why there are so many.
Speaker 3: It makes sure some animals make it to adulthood and
Speaker 3: can contribute to the population. By head starting animals, we
Speaker 3: can give them that kickstart in the wild and guarantee
Speaker 3: more animals make it, or not guarantee, but increase the
Speaker 3: chances that more animals will make it to adulthood and
Speaker 3: then become reproductive parts of the wild population.
Speaker 2: However, that does.
Speaker 3: Not mean that every animal that we're breeding in zoological
Speaker 3: institutions is going back into the wild. There's a high
Speaker 3: risk of transferring diseases and a lot of other problems
Speaker 3: that we don't necessarily want to perpetuate in the wild
Speaker 3: without proper testing and quarantining procedures. So most of our
Speaker 3: populations are for sustainability within the zoological field. That allow
Speaker 3: us to maintain those genetics if needed, and then also
Speaker 3: to research these populations. And so these tortoises will not
Speaker 3: go back to the wild. They will be part of
Speaker 3: our North American population of western Santa Cruz Galapagos tortoises,
Speaker 3: which was forty four individuals and now is sixty so
Speaker 3: really nice big kick yeah, in the population, and we
Speaker 3: will not keep them all. They will have to be
Speaker 3: moved out in place to these get very large and
Speaker 3: live a every long time, so we will move them
Speaker 3: out into the aza population at other zoos within North America.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's and I think it is something
Speaker 1: that is important for people to learn about, which is
Speaker 1: that zoos. Natural history museums there's a lot of stuff there,
Speaker 1: both living specimens and you know, not living specimens where
Speaker 1: it is preserving a lot of information so we can
Speaker 1: look at DNA from an animal as this huge library
Speaker 1: of information. And you know, obviously with natural history museums
Speaker 1: the specimens are almost always not living animals, but you
Speaker 1: still have like outside of the like display area which
Speaker 1: is for education and is amazing, I love it, but
Speaker 1: inside sort of the archives, you have a ton of
Speaker 1: stuff that is there for research, and also just to
Speaker 1: preserve things that you may not know what to do
Speaker 1: with yet. Right, Like one of my favorite examples is
Speaker 1: a lot of museums have ear wax from whales, and
Speaker 1: they didn't they didn't know what to do with these,
Speaker 1: Like they're these like hard chunks, they're almost like they're
Speaker 1: kind of like fossils, but it's just hardened ear wax
Speaker 1: from whales, And they had no idea what to do
Speaker 1: with them for like hundreds of years, but they kept it,
Speaker 1: and then finally some researchers realized we can actually like
Speaker 1: cut into this and look at it and use it
Speaker 1: to understand better whales seasonal diets and migratory patterns. So
Speaker 1: I imagine this is something that happens in zoos as well.
Speaker 1: Like you are, you have the front facing part of
Speaker 1: the zoo, which is educating people, letting people see into
Speaker 1: a world that otherwise they would not have access to,
Speaker 1: uh and kind of you know, allowing people to explore
Speaker 1: the their love of animals, which I think is wonderful.
Speaker 1: But then you also have just a massive amount of
Speaker 1: information that is either being researched or there in case
Speaker 1: we lose some of these animals, so that we still
Speaker 1: have at least some of the record of these animals
Speaker 1: in living specimens. So can you talk a little bit
Speaker 1: about that, like the kind of maybe unseen side of
Speaker 1: conservation at the zoo.
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, So we do have a zoological information system
Speaker 3: where we collect vast amounts of data. So while you
Speaker 3: come to Philadelphia Zoo and you only see two Glopagos
Speaker 3: tortoises or now you know, nineteen, are nineteen or contributing
Speaker 3: data to the overall forty.
Speaker 2: Four that we have housed currently.
Speaker 3: But then just think about the number of Glophagos tortses
Speaker 3: that we've had in human care in North America in
Speaker 3: our history. And so every day the animal caretakers are
Speaker 3: collecting data, they're collecting important information on each individual here
Speaker 3: at the zoo, and then these individuals and they become
Speaker 3: part of a population and that amasses a large amount
Speaker 3: of data. And so this provides a repository right for
Speaker 3: future research and for current research. We never know what
Speaker 3: questions we're going to ask or what needs we're going
Speaker 3: to have in the future, and what conservation issues might
Speaker 3: come up and where that data might be super valuable,
Speaker 3: and so often we're fielding research requests as as zoo
Speaker 3: professionals from universities where there's a professor or a student
Speaker 3: doing their master's research and they would like us to
Speaker 3: share data with them, or they would like to come
Speaker 3: observe our animals for one of their research questions. So
Speaker 3: being able to provide that opportunity is huge.
Speaker 1: This is a question that just occurred to me. So
Speaker 1: I don't want to put too much pressure on you,
Speaker 1: but what, like, are there any really funny kind of
Speaker 1: ways of data collection? Because I've heard stories of the
Speaker 1: very creative ways people have to, say, do fecal samples
Speaker 1: at zoos or try to figure out, like, hey, whose
Speaker 1: poop is this, and then using glitter or dye that's
Speaker 1: safe in order to identify whose poop is this? So
Speaker 1: is there are there any like really funny ways either
Speaker 1: in general at the Philadelphia Zoo or within the herpetology
Speaker 1: department where you guys have had to do really weird
Speaker 1: things in the name of research.
Speaker 2: Well, you named mine.
Speaker 3: I mean for me, I did a fecal hormone study
Speaker 3: with crocodilians at a different institution, but I had to
Speaker 3: figure out how to get them to be markers in
Speaker 3: their fecal samples.
Speaker 2: So that I knew whose species were each and one
Speaker 2: way was dye. So and you don't want to use like.
Speaker 3: A red dye, right because they will come out looking like,
Speaker 3: you know, oh my god, what's proud animal.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so one.
Speaker 3: Animal got blue dye and had very green poop, and
Speaker 3: another animal got glitter. And that was hilarious because when
Speaker 3: I was feeding this crocodile one day, it kind of
Speaker 3: went up to grab the rat that had glitter in it,
Speaker 3: and it hit the rat and it just exploded like
Speaker 3: a glitter bomb all over the exhibits. So that was
Speaker 3: a really fun day for me when I was like,
Speaker 3: oh my goodness, you didn't see that happening.
Speaker 1: And glitter gets everywhere, so everywhere probably still there to
Speaker 1: this day. Yeah, that's I love that. I mean, you
Speaker 1: have to you have to get creative because it's not
Speaker 1: like you can't interview these animals.
Speaker 2: You can't.
Speaker 1: They don't use toilets, you can't have them come. Well,
Speaker 1: you can do labs on them, but if you're just
Speaker 1: trying to let them live their lives and then collect
Speaker 1: their collect biological specimens from them, sometimes you got to
Speaker 1: feed them a glitter rat. That's amazing. So Yeah, any
Speaker 1: other conservation news, any other zoo babies or weird and
Speaker 1: wild stuff happening.
Speaker 3: No, I think the biggest news here is that we're
Speaker 3: getting ready to you know, we've broke ground and we're
Speaker 3: working on our new Bear Country exhibit and so the
Speaker 3: opening of that is going to just be phenomenal next year.
Speaker 3: And we recently opened the Flamingo walkthrough, so that has
Speaker 3: been a really exciting guest opportunity where you can walk
Speaker 3: in with some of our some of our flamingos.
Speaker 2: Is a nice new habitat.
Speaker 3: So just you know, constantly progressing, moving forward, working with
Speaker 3: a lot of endangered species here and doing our best
Speaker 3: to really push the needle for conservation and animal care.
Speaker 1: That's fantastic. And how are all the How are all
Speaker 1: of Mommy's babies doing now? Are they all all good?
Speaker 2: Yes, there's doing awesome.
Speaker 3: We're really happy we have an exhibit inside the Reptility
Speaker 3: Amphibian House. But in this nice weather, we've been able
Speaker 3: to get a group of them outside as well. So
Speaker 3: getting them out in natural, full spectrum lighting is just
Speaker 3: really beneficial to their health. So we're getting them outside
Speaker 3: and they're they're growing like weeds.
Speaker 2: I'll tell you that they're they're adorable.
Speaker 1: How okay, just one more like these? How small do
Speaker 1: they start off? And then like because they got to
Speaker 1: get to be around four hundred pounds eventually.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so they hatched around but you know, anywhere between
Speaker 3: sixty and eighty grams, so like roughly the size of
Speaker 3: a tennis.
Speaker 2: Ball right fit in the palm of your hand.
Speaker 3: And I mean they are going on five months, six months,
Speaker 3: the oldest ones now, and they've doubled in size.
Speaker 1: Wow, amazing. Yeah, yeah, I mean that's that's fantastic. Hopefully
Speaker 1: they will be big and cumbersome real soon. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: It's one of the actually the really difficult parts is
Speaker 3: making sure they don't grow too fast because they are,
Speaker 3: you know, grazers. They're constantly ready to eat, and so
Speaker 3: one of the things we learned early on wearing giant
Speaker 3: tortoises is that we don't want them to grow too
Speaker 3: fast because they'll end up with shell issues and arthritis.
Speaker 1: And that's so interesting.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So it's actually a huge job raising these babies. Like
Speaker 3: we're weighing and measuring them every month. Our nutritionist is
Speaker 3: amazing and she's really tracking their diet intake and what
Speaker 3: they don't eat, so we know when do we increase
Speaker 3: the food availability to them. It's a really interesting process
Speaker 3: that is teaching us a lot about controlling our offerings
Speaker 3: to these animals. Because they are hungry and they are ready.
Speaker 1: To eat, they will eat. Uh yeah, I I sympathize
Speaker 1: with that if I have a dog. I have a
Speaker 1: dog who would eat, who would eat herself sick if
Speaker 1: I if I lit her so I can't. But she
Speaker 1: thinks I'm a monster for it, and that's just that's
Speaker 1: just how it's gotta be. But I can baby Galapago's
Speaker 1: tortoise give you puppy dog eyes when they're not getting
Speaker 1: enough food or they do. They just kind of look
Speaker 1: eh whatever.
Speaker 3: They're just like air biting around like the staff are,
Speaker 3: like they're hungry.
Speaker 1: That is that is adorable. Uh Well, before we go,
Speaker 1: we're gonna play a little game called the mister Animal
Speaker 1: sound game. Guess who's squawking? Last week, the mystery animal
Speaker 1: sound hint was this. You can find this animal in
Speaker 1: Kara Jaimo's book about sea creatures called Leaving the Ocean
Speaker 1: was a mistake. We talked to Karl last week, so
Speaker 1: another part of the clue if you have not read
Speaker 1: the book is that it's not a bird and it's
Speaker 1: not a superhero sidekick. This one is really really tricky
Speaker 1: if you haven't read the book. So I apologize. I'm
Speaker 1: I'm immediately giving you hard node for this. All right, Lauren,
Speaker 1: do you have any gifts? Oh my gosh, this is
Speaker 1: such a I would I wouldn't get this one. I'm
Speaker 1: just gonna I'm gonna come out with that. It's it's
Speaker 1: very very tricky.
Speaker 2: Leaning towards a marine mammal, but yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 2: I'm thinking like a.
Speaker 1: It does kind of sound.
Speaker 2: Like a he was eating a clam there, and that's
Speaker 2: where I went with that.
Speaker 1: It sounds it sounds like a happy sound, like a
Speaker 1: sea otter. But it's really fascinating because this is actually
Speaker 1: a fish. This is this is the sea robin. Congratulations
Speaker 1: to Emily m Alaura W and Craig K for guessing correctly.
Speaker 1: It is a fish that is able to make this
Speaker 1: kind of like weird groaning, gurgling sound that you can
Speaker 1: only hear as people. We can only hear it on lands.
Speaker 1: So this particular fish is very unhappy to be on land,
Speaker 1: so it is complaining, But yeah, fish do not normally
Speaker 1: make a ton of vocalizations. It was a big deal
Speaker 1: a few years ago and we were able to actually
Speaker 1: get some recording devices near coral reefs and found out
Speaker 1: that there's a lot more sounds than one would expect
Speaker 1: that are being made by the fish and by the
Speaker 1: invertebrates that are living in the coral reefs. But yeah,
Speaker 1: sound communication, except for with cetaceans whales, it's not usually
Speaker 1: going on with a lot of sea life. So it's
Speaker 1: really interesting when we find a fish, something that is
Speaker 1: not a mammal in the ocean who can make a
Speaker 1: sound like why can't.
Speaker 2: Make this sound?
Speaker 1: What are they doing down there? Onto this week's mystery
Speaker 1: animal sound. The hint is this, you may find these
Speaker 1: colorful animals at zoos, but they're not always in an exhibit.
Speaker 1: All right, Lauren, do you have any guesses?
Speaker 3: Well, from your hint, I want to say, but I
Speaker 3: feel like when I've heard they sounded.
Speaker 2: More like cats than that did.
Speaker 1: Well, you're absolutely correct, Will I will be bleeping out
Speaker 1: your answer, but the listeners will know that you got
Speaker 1: it correctly. I have personal experience with one of these
Speaker 1: that showed up in my yard when I was a kid,
Speaker 1: and so pretty, so amazing. These are all more hints
Speaker 1: for you guys to have figured out. But like, it's
Speaker 1: a beautiful animal and then it just makes the most
Speaker 1: god awful noise and shrieks at you. It's very intimidating.
Speaker 1: And I have seen these at a lot of zoos,
Speaker 1: and they're often just chilling out walking around. They're at
Speaker 1: the I know for sure they're at the San Diego Zoo,
Speaker 1: and usually you can just see them kind of like
Speaker 1: hanging out with the visitors. And I've never quite understood
Speaker 1: what they're doing there. I do, I'm pretty sure they're
Speaker 1: there purposefully, but yeah, they seem to just enjoy hanging out.
Speaker 1: So if you guys think you know the answer to
Speaker 1: this week's mister Animal sound game, you can write to
Speaker 1: me at Creature feature Pod at gmail dot com. Lauren,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for coming on today. Where can
Speaker 1: people find more information about Mommy, about the babies, about
Speaker 1: the Philadelphia Zoo?
Speaker 3: Yep, well it's all over the news Mommy and her Baby,
Speaker 3: but you can definitely find out moreation on our website
Speaker 3: and then obviously please come to the zoo if you're
Speaker 3: in the Philadelphia area such a wonderful place. The reptile
Speaker 3: house is open and the babies can be seen inside
Speaker 3: and outside seasonally, and Mommy and abraso out in the
Speaker 3: yard as well when temperatures are ideal.
Speaker 1: Amazing. That sounds so fun. I would love to see
Speaker 1: those babies if I was in the area. Maybe someday,
Speaker 1: maybe when they're grown, I'll be able to see them.
Speaker 1: And thank you guys so much for listening. If you're
Speaker 1: enjoying the show and you leave a rating or review,
Speaker 1: it's greatly appreciated. That does help me a lot. I
Speaker 1: read all the reviews and I appreciate the feedback. And
Speaker 1: thanks to the space Cussocks for their super awesome song.
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Speaker 1: to your favorite shows. I'm not your mother. I can't
Speaker 1: tell you what to do, but if I was your mother,
Speaker 1: I'd probably dig a hole, leave you in there and
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Speaker 1: you next Wednesday. H