Howler monkeys are the largest of the New World monkeys and they have the loudest call of any land mammal. (Click here to listen to a Black Howler Monkey) Their deep, howling calls can be heard almost 3 miles through the tropical forest of Central and South America! Howler Monkeys are critically endangered due to the illegal pet trade and bushmeat crisis.

On the weekend of October 22-23 we will be holding a Spotlight on Species event which will include educational activities, Howler Monkey keeper chats at 10a.m., 2p.m., and 3:30p.m., as well as a variety of merchandise that will be on sale to help raise money for Wildtracks. Wildtracks is a non-profit organization that rehabilitates these illegally procured monkeys and reintroduces them into the wild forests of northern Belize.  Primate keepers Rachel Vass and Helen Boostrom visited Belize in June and spent time working at Wildtracks with some of these rehabilitated monkeys. You can read their blog posts on the Houston Zoo’s Wild Conservation Blog!

Visit our website to learn all the details about our special Howlerween Spotlight on Species weekend on October 22-23, located in our Wortham World of Primates. Please come out and visit us for a howling good time!

A male black howler monkey at the Zoo.

The Houston Zoo Primate department is hosting their 2nd annual Spotlight on Species for the black howler monkeys on October 23 and 24th. At the black howler monkey exhibit there will be a conservation change funnel. All proceeds will be donated to the Wildlife Care Center of Belize. The WCCB was established in 1999 and became the first sanctioned wildlife rehabilitation and release facility in the country. At the WCCB, they rescue, rehabilitate, and release black howler monkeys back into the wild.

The black howler monkeys get their name from the calls them make early in the morning and late in the day. Although it is not a piercing call, it can be heard up to 3 miles away! (Hear a howler monkey here.)

In 2001, the Black howler monkey was upgraded from vulnerable to officially become a red list endangered species. One of the main reasons is because of the pet trade industry.

Come visit the Houston Zoo’s black howler monkeys during Zoo Boo this weekend and learn all about these amazing primates!

Written by Elizabeth, Education Programs Specialist.

Ellie the Darkling Beetle

Ellie, our beetle, lives alone but is comforted by the fact that she is surrounded by Madagascar Hissing Cockroaches on one side, and Harry the Scorpion on the other. She can be found in the western half of the United States in dry, desert habitats. She feeds mainly on vegetation and when disturbed, she will burrow her head deep beneath her substrate to hide. If she really is frightened by a predator, these beetles have been known to raise themselves up on their back legs and emit a bad smelling odor to warn off potential threats.

Harry, our Desert Hairy Scorpion is named mainly for the abundance of hair that can be found on his claws (pincers). These scorpions can be found in the Southwestern United States in desert habitats. In the wild they mainly eat spiders, centipedes and other invertebrates. At the Zoo Harry chomps on crickets! Due to the heat of the desert during the day, scorpions hunt mostly at night, using their long hairs covering their bodies to detect prey. Harry uses his pincers to catch prey, but also has poison in his tail which he can use to stun his food, or for defense.

Harry our Desert Scorpion

Both Ellie and Harry are great animals to use in a habitats class, but they like to remain in their carriers. We can easily and safely watch them from there during one of our many programs offered here at the Houston Zoo!

If you’re into these creepy crawlies you can check out similar creatures in the Reptile House, Natural Encounters and the Children’s Zoo.

Our Kenyan Sand Boa, Sandi, about to dig herself underneath the sand

Sandi is our Kenyan Sand Boa that just moved to our building a couple weeks ago. As you may guess, her species is found in East Africa in desert regions and scrub savannas.

Sandi is well adapted for living in these habitats. Her shovel-like nose helps her dig her entire body under the sand so she is barely visible. Watching her as she burrows underneath the sand is quite the show! She uses the tip of her nose to push the sand away and make room for her body to go under the sand.

Check out her shovel-like nose!

Along with her helpful nose, her brown and orange coloration helps her camouflage and sneak up on prey. As is the case with most snakes, Sandi loves to eat rodents. Her main diet in the wild is small rodents and small lizards but at the Zoo she is mainly fed mice.

Don’t be fooled by her ‘boa’ name though…she is much smaller than most boa constrictors. Female sand boas can reach lengths of up to 24 inches, while males can only reach about 15 inches in length. Their small size helps them hide underneath sand and rocky areas.

Sandi-excited to be out of her home and visiting with staff!

Their size also makes them easy to handle and present to the public. Here at the Zoo Sandi is getting accustomed to being held by lots of staff members! She is very calm and loves the attention she gets when she’s taken out. If you happen to join us in the Brown Education Center for a program you might get to meet her too!

So why not jump in head first? Let’s meet our plethora of Madagascar Hissing Cockroaches (Gromphadorhina portentosa). This species of invertebrate hails from the island of Madagascar, off the coast of east Africa. They usually feed on fruit and plant material which they find on the forest floor.

Our Madagascar Hissing Cockroaches chowing down on some lettuce

Here at the Houston Zoo we have so many that we can’t even name them all! We have every size…from “Teeny tiny are you a piece of shrunken carrot?” to “My oh my you could be the national bird of Madagascar!”

These cockroaches may range in size from itty bitty to a small bird, however they cannot fly like other species of cockroaches. Their main way to ward off predators is to hiss! They make this noise by exhaling air through several breathing holes. Although both males and females can hiss, only males display unique horns on the tops of their heads which make them look more impressive to other males.

A male cockroach enjoying a fruit snack

These cockroaches can also use their hissing noise to attract mates.  Can anyone say triple threat?

Here in the Education Department we love to use these inverts to bring to Adventure Classes, Critter Encounters, or on ZooMobiles. There’s nothing like engaging a group of students while simultaneously scaring the heebee jeebies out of teachers and parents!

Don't be scared, put your hand in there!

What do you think…would you touch our cockroaches?

Lories don't need computers to be social, but we love social media at the Houston Zoo!

As we turn in our rotary phones for Iphones and Blackberries, and our desktop computers for Ipads and laptops, we must ask ourselves-what will be next? And what’s next for the Zoo and specifically the Education Department is social media! Now, you may ask yourself, ‘what is social media’? That buzz phrase is tossed out all over the place, but for us it offers our department a greener, more immediate way to reach a wide audience. Whether it is Flickr, Twitter, or Facebook, the Zoo is reaching out online to people of all age everyday.

 Now of course, social media isn’t for everyone. I enjoy sitting down with a newspaper and coffee as much as the next person, but as technology changes, we must change with it.  As for the Education Department, we have switched from handing out pamphlets of information to directing as many people to our website as possible. Not only do we save paper, but you may stumble upon something interesting our on website (whether that is photography, bat houses or dinosaurs) that you hadn’t previously considered. As for teachers, the Houston Zoo has started a brand new Facebook Page called “Houston Zoo Teacher Talk” that is specifically directed towards educators. Become a fan and receive updates on educator workshops, new online resources, insider tips to making your fieldtrip to the Zoo as smooth as possible, and much, much, more. 

If a more private social network suits your fancy, check out Ning. We use it to exchange ideas with our Teacher Advisory Council, but it could be used for anything from a sports team to a special interest group. Check it out-it’s user friendly and sure beats clogging your friends inboxes with emails.

Now, you won’t find the Education Department on Twitter anytime soon…I don’t think updates on how my curriculum writing is going would be the most entertaining tweet, but if it is, you can let me know.

So hop on board, become a fan, lend your ideas. Not only are we open to broadening our horizons, we embrace it!

Written by Martha, Education Programs Specialist

Who couldn’t love a face like this?

I see that picture, or this one…

…and I just have to SMILE!

(even if it’s a little blurry, the comedy still comes through)

This is Freeday, the Indian Runner duck who lives the zoo. He’s not on exhibit, but makes his home in a very nice duck condo on the grounds and has a devoted group of keepers who tend to his every need.

Freeday is the first animal I took out on grounds for the visitors to enjoy after completing my animal handling training — the last part of the close to 9 month training process it takes to become a Houston Zoo docent.

This breed is aptly named, because they don’t walk or waddle, they run, and when they get where they’re going, they often stamp their feet as if they are very excited, or drank a lot of Starbucks.  I took a shine to Freeday because of these charming antics and knew right away that he would be the animal who I’d take out on grounds first.

While Freeday is trained to be held, I found he was more comfortable when I set him on the top of his carrier. Think about it. In the animal world, anything bigger than you trying to hold you could feel a little like someone who may want you for dinner (and, mind you,  not as a guest)! While this duck was doing fine in my arms, I wanted him to be as comfortable as possible, so I let him stand and he was very well behaved. I was quite impressed!

I’ve grown to LOVE ducks and geese after spending quite a bit of time with them at the park next to my house, where they reside in abundance. On regular visits, I’ve gotten to know who hangs with whom and what their personalities are like, what each pecking order is, etc. In fact, between my time there and the Houston Zoo I’ve come to have a real respect, love and appreciation for all kinds of living beings that I never thought I’d feel that way about…simply because I’ve spent some time observing and learning about them.

It takes a lot to get a duck to trust you. Freeday was delightful — well behaved (though he entertained himself trying to pluck off my buttons and name tag till I hid them) and very responsive to what I was asking of him. The day I took him out was one of those in the triple digits. Though we stayed close to where he lives and I parked us in the shade, after 20 minutes he looked hot, so I packed him up to take him back for a dip.

And I think it was just the right thing to do. Without delay, he walked up his little plank and posed at the edge of his personal pond for a picture before diving in and splashing around.

At 98 degrees, I was ready to join him!

His  quacking has quickly made the short list of my favorite sounds.

Now that I’ve introduced him to you, what do you think of Freeday? Please let me know in the comment area.

Photos by Rochelle Joseph

Written by Rochelle Joseph. Please visit my animal and nature blog at www.naturegirrrl.blogspot.com

This is the hut in the Embera village where we stayed during our Harpy Eagle adventure

In Chiriqui, Jose said “Quetzals and Harpy Eagles, two birds that cancel flights and change iteneraries.”  I thought he was just referring to our plan change for the quetzal, but I was wrong.

After we flew back to Panama City, we were supposed to fly into the Darien region, take a boat up a river, and stay at a lodge in the jungle.  But on the trip in January, they did not see Harpy Eagle, so Jose made some changes to give us a better shot.  (Again, no guarantees, but he seemed pretty confident.)  So to get our goal for Darien, we had quite an adventure.

Before heading into the Darien, Jeremy and I took one precaution for hte sake of wildlife: we disinfected our shoes.  Darien is one of the last places on the planet without chytrid, a fungus that is killing off frogs and other amphibians.  While it hasn’t been proven conclusively, people carrying it in on their shoes is strongly suspected as one of the main ways the fungus is spread.  So we disinfected our shoes before we went.

Instead of a plane, we took the van to Darien.  This was a 4 hour drive, which included 5 National Police checkpoints.  We stayed in a town called Meteti, at a hotel that had air conditioning (and only cold water in the shower – woohoo, refreshing!).  Then we took a boat (which was part of the plan already) up a small river that is only navigable at high tide.  Our destination: the Embera village of Mogue, where we stayed with the tribe in an elevated hut for two days.  It was definitely an adventure, which reminded me more than a little of reality TV.  During this trek, including the drive, we stopped and looked for birds (of course), getting several Darien specialties, including a Golden-green Woodpecker which Jose had only seen once before.

The juvenile Harpy Eagle on the edge of the nest, taken at a distance

On our only full day in Mogue, we went on the Harpy Eagle hike.  This was a 2.5 hour hike through hot, humid jungle to the nesting site of a Harpy Eagle.  We started early, so the hike in was not too bad, and despite Jose’s warnings that the chick might not be there, we saw the eagle.  A large juvenile bird, standing at the edge of the nest.  We got close enough to see it through spotting scope and binoculars, but not close enough to scare it. 

The nest was in the top of a Cuipo tree, the huge, deciduous emergents of Panama.  The tree that held this nest would have taken three people to hug at the base, and the top stuck out above the canopy.  The trees lose their leaves in the dry season, to conserve water, which made it a lot easier for us to see the nest.

This is where the patience part comes in: once we were at the nest, we waited to see if an adult would return.  Waited, and waited, for over 2 hours.  Of course, the chick was big enough that the adults didn;t have to come back while we were there – and they didn’t – but it did mean that we got lots of time to watch the chick.  And time to rest – we got to hike back out during the heat of the day, which was very exhausting, and I was glad that I had been able to sit for a while before that part of the adventure.

Tour Travel Tip #4: Be flexible and accepting.
Without a change in plans, we wouldn’t have seen the Harpy, by far the best bird of our trip.

I am an admitted lister, focusing on getting the new bird, the species that I haven’t seen before.  But I did learn one important thing on this trip: the most memorable birds are the ones that show you a bit about themselves.  We saw a Black Oropendola calling (which involves leaning so far forward it looks like it will fall off the branch), a Golden-capped Manikin dancing (including his moonwalk impression), and we heard Keel-billed Toucans croaking like frogs.  So yes, we saw 374 bird species and I added 291 birds to my life list.  But I also got to learn more about the animals and habitats of a very cool part of the world.

This huge hummingbird, a Violet Sabrewing, is only found in the highlands

 Finished with the Canal Zone, we flew into David, in western Panama.  Once we drove up out of David and into the highlands, I noticed several things that were very different from the canal zone.  Forget that we were there in the dry season; there was mist every day and even some rain.  This is where we got into some serious cloud forest.  There were some exciting birds, but up away from the rainforest, there were fewer species, and we had to work harder to see them.  We stayed in Volcan, near Volcan Baru National Park (it’s a dormant volcano), and our big goal for Chiriqui was the Resplendant Quetzal. (I also told Jose I wanted to see a Long-tailed Silky-Flycatcher, to which he responded, “We’ll see many.”  This means about the same as “We’ll see more,” so I wasn’t worried.)

There are some impressive birds in the Chiriqui highlands, including giant hummingbirds and day-glo tanagers.  We also saw a Tropical Screech Owl near our hotel, and the stars at night were just amazing!  We did see several Long-tailed Silky-Flycatchers (always flying away before I could get a picture), but the Quetzal was a more difficult story.

In the dry season, especially from January to March, quetzal is a difficult but consistent bird.  Consistent, because they feed on wild avocados – find a tree where they feed, and you are almost guaranteed to see one.  The difficult part comes in getting to them, because they live at high elevations and spend their time up in the canopy.  So they are a hike-up-a-hill, strain-your-neck kind of bird.  But even if most guides don’t guarantee quetzal, they at least expect to see them.  So quetzal should have been on the list the first day of Chiriqui, right?

Wrong.  Last year’s rainy season was especially wet and windy, and the avocados fruited late.  Typically the fruits are ripe enough for eating by January.  This year, even by our trip in February, most of the trees were still unripe.  Meaning the easy way to see quetzal was not an option.  We hiked up a mountain the first day, hoping to see it, but no luck.  (We did add 40 birds to the trip list by the end of the day, including some very cool woodpeckers, but no quetzal.)  So Jose, our fabulous guide, contacted a local guide he knew, and we tried again on the second day.  After hiking up the other side of the same mountain (the dormant volcano, in fact), guess who spotted a male quetzal high in a tree, pretending to be a branch.  Yup, it was me!  Every trip we go on, I get one awesome spot, where I find a bird and everyone says “how did you see that?” and this trip, I got quetzal.  And I was really glad, too, because I was tired of hiking up the mountain (and honestly, that may have been my driving factor for detailed searching). 

Tour Travel Tip #3:  Be prepared to be patient.
You may have to look a while for a specific bird.  You are birding with people of different skills, so you may have to wait while others find the bird.  And you may have to sit and wait for a bird to show up, which we discovered in our final area, Darien. ]]> http://houstonzooblogs.org/education/2010/03/birds-of-panama-part-3-chiriqui-highlands/feed/ 0 http://houstonzooblogs.org/education/2010/03/birds-of-panama-part-2-canal-zone/ http://houstonzooblogs.org/education/2010/03/birds-of-panama-part-2-canal-zone/#comments Thu, 04 Mar 2010 13:00:01 +0000 Leigh http://houstonzooblogs.org/education/?p=688 The first part of our trip was based mainly in the Canal Zone, split between the Panama City area on the Pacific side and Gamboa, about halfway to the Caribbean side.  The isthmus of Panama is only about 50 miles across at the point of the canal, so it was relatively easy travel between these [...]]]>

A Blue-crowned Motmot in Gamboa

The first part of our trip was based mainly in the Canal Zone, split between the Panama City area on the Pacific side and Gamboa, about halfway to the Caribbean side.  The isthmus of Panama is only about 50 miles across at the point of the canal, so it was relatively easy travel between these two areas.  Our goal for the canal zone: 100 new life list birds, and a sunbittern if we could get it.

Thanks to the canal, there are several large national parks in the area.  These are areas that were left undeveloped as a military buffer zone, which have now been converted into an ecological corridor.  The parks are home to some amazing animals; we saw a tamandua and a coati, as well as hummingbirds, toucans, and many other impressive birds.  The coolest bird of our first full day: the common potoo, which we saw holding perfectly still pretending to be a broken branch, with a fuzzy baby imitating the adult perfectly.  In Gamboa we saw bright birds called motmots; if you want to see one in person, we have a few in the Tropical Bird House rainforest here at the zoo.  Motmots nest underground, excavating burrows into dirt slopes.  We saw a rufous motmot near a nest – in fact, a few of the people on our trip missed seeing the bird because it flew into its hole.  (It came back out a little later, so everyone eventually saw it.) 

A Coati in Gamboa

We got to spend a day in the foothills near Panama City, at a place called Cerro Azul.  I learned two important lessons here, which are listed in the travel tip at the end.  Let me set the scene.  We were walking through the rainforest; it was warm and humid, although cooler than it had been in the lowlands.  There was no breeze, and we were all sweating.  All around we could hear the high pitched whine of the cicadas, a sound very similar to a circular saw being used in the distance.  We were descending a hill, slipping a little in the damp leaves and dirt.  Jose was playing a bird call through a tiny speaker attached to his mp3 player.  When the bird called back, he held up his hand, gathered us all together, and told us to stay close, move quick, and be quiet.  We got very close to where the bird was calling, and my husbband and I were rewarded with a quick glimpse of a dark, fast bird.  That was all we saw of the Black-crowned Antpitta, although we heard it call again in the distance later. 

The two lessons from our Antpitta Experience?  That’s Tour Travel Tip #2: Trust your guide, and stick close. 
When Jose told us “Don’t worry, we’ll see more” what I learned he meant was “this bird we are working on is way cooler than that very common bird, so don’t get distracted.”  And the closer I was to our guide, the better my chance of seeing the cool bird that might drop back out of sight any moment.

If you were wondering about our goal, we most definitely got it: we saw the sunbittern (briefly, as it flew) and by the third day of the trip, I had added 108 new birds to my list.  Finished with the Canal Zone, we flew west, toward Costa Rica and the Chiriqui Highlands.