Mission Golden-eyed Frog
Archive for the ‘Amphibians’ Category
Apr
21
Texas Roadtrip
Spotlight on Texas
Ever wonder what animals you can find right here in Texas? Well, look no further! Most of the animals in the John P. McGovern Children’s Zoo can be found right here in the great state of Texas. Some are here naturally and some you can find on farms across the state. Texas has a great diversity of habitat with lots of animals!
As you first walk into the Children’s Zoo, imagine yourself in the city. You will see a stream of Koi fish that are very colorful additions to many ponds and water gardens. This is also where you can swap your nature items in our Swap Shop. Of course where you find a great city, you will find a great forest. Winding through the boardwalk you will see Deer, Turkey, Owls, Porcupines, Coati, Bald Eagle, and Otters! As the Otters are enticing you to stop and play you will notice the nice coastal smell wafting your way. The sounds of the
Coati
shore pull you along the stream to the coast to watch our Pelicans and sea gulls get their afternoon lunch. Fish are flying through the air and our Pelican, Walter, is trying to woo the female, Mable, by giving her special treats. Next door, the fresh water Alligator Snapping turtles take you back to prehistoric times when reptiles ruled the earth. You will watch and wonder, “Just how long can they stay under water?” If you sit and wait, you might want to bring a book because they can hold their breath up to 50 minutes! As you wait, you see something pop up out of the corner of your eye. When you go to look, nothing is there! Everyone knows that patience is a virtue, so you sit for just a couple minutes and a prairie dog pops his head out to look for predators. These rodents spend a lot of time burrowing in the ground. Ever want to just burrow underground yourself? Well, you can get a fresh perspective by popping your own head in one of the viewing windows. By this time, it is pretty sunny and you see a nice cool cave. Through our cave system, you will see some of the reptiles and amphibians that make Texas their home. As you turn a corner to the second cave, you see a nice starry sky. As you walk through you notice some fluttering behind glass. At first you think it’s birds, but it is bats! These fruit and nectar-feeding bats are our neighbors from Central America but are representing the insect eating bats you can find flying our night sky
prairie dog
right in our backyard. There is a colony of around 20 million Mexican free-tailed bats in Bracken Cave, near San Antonia, that eat 250 tons of insects every night! Talk about pest control! As you wander out of the bat cave, you see a Swift fox. Don’t let it’s size
white tailed deer and Rio Grande turkey
fool you into thinking it’s a baby. These are actually fully grown adults. Next, you see the farm animals. These are all domesticated animals that many people raise. These are animals that you can touch! You may not be able to choose between the silly antics of the goats or reaching over to give our Zebu cattle a nice back rub. Either way, they have a way of warming your heart. By this time, you may be tired but the kids are still wild. Go ahead and relax on a bench while watching your kids have a grand time on the play ground or in the water play area.
WOW! Texas is big but you can see it all in just a short time right here in your home town. So next time you talk a walk through the Children’s Zoo imagine yourself taking your own personal road trip through Texas.
Mar
19
Watch LIFE
“We must not allow the clock and the calendar to blind us to the fact that each moment of life is a miracle and mystery.”
—H.G. Wells
When the extraordinary Planet Earth series debuted on TV in February 2007, it grabbed attention around the world. 65 million of us had a regularly scheduled date in the living room for 11 weeks in a row, and sat riveted by breathtaking photography and the miracle of nature. Shot in the fairly new medium of HD, it took us to places and allowed us to bear witness to things we’d never seen before. Everyone everywhere was talking about it — at the dinner table, via e-mail and around the water cooler (imagine, no one was tweeting yet!).
Starting this Sunday, March 21, Discovery Channel and the producers of Planet Earth bring us a new series called LIFE. Last night I was invited to watch a screening of the first episode, Challenges of Life, at the Landmark River Oaks Theatre, hosted by Target and BBC. It is a particularly dramatic theme: The instinct to survive inherent in all living things and their ability to adapt to sustain the species.
LIFE, Discovery Channel's new series to begin this coming Sunday night
Narrated by Oprah Winfrey, the visuals remain spectacular, the stories engaging and the educational value excellent. With this first ep covering foxes, whales, seals, reptiles, insects, plant life, primates, octopi, big cats, hippos and more, there is something for everyone. Standouts to me were the way a small population of common bottle nose dolphins have learned to teach fish to jump right into their mouths, the lengths that a strawberry poison dart frog mother goes to ensure her babies grow and thrive, and how a primate species use tools. With the latter, it’s at once uncanny and unsettling to see their arms and legs making the exact same motions as our own, and their faces frown and show the same exasperation as we do in learning how to wield a large rock as a hammer.
This strawberry poison dart frog is an immensely dedicated mother
All show considerable intelligence and drive that can only encourage new or heightened respect for the creatures we share the planet with. While these examples take place in exotic locales, it can’t help but remind us that to those who take the time to look, there is drama and spectacle going on all around us, all the time — in any tree or on a simple blade of grass.
It makes you think twice about burying yourself in your hand held device 24/7. Hopefully.
Overall, the subject matter is nothing short of motivating. Simply by making it this easy and appealing to explore the world we live in at a deeper level, the conclusion is this: We live in a gorgeous, fantastic, miraculous, wonder filled world. As the dominant species, we should and must do everything in our power to conserve and preserve it and all that lives. There is nothing like the awe inspired by a show like LIFE to jolt us awake to this fact, and fuel a passionate desire to honor and protect our forests, oceans, plains, and mountain ranges, and all of their inhabitants.
Now there’s something to tweet about.
So clear your schedule to again be enchanted, amazed and inspired, brought to you by mother nature… and the producers at BBC and Discovery Channel!
LIFE starts this Sunday, March 21, on Discovery Channel. It runs through April 18 and treats us to double episodes each time (8-10PM ET/PT). And stay tuned after the final show on April 18 for a special called, The Making of LIFE at 10 PM.
Written by Rochelle Joseph. Visit me at my animal and nature blog at:www.naturegirrrl.blogspot.com
Thank you to Discovery Channel and BBC for all photos but the dart frog from Michigan Science Art.
Dec
24
On The Eleventh Day Of Christmas
…The Houston Zoo Gave To Me
Eleven Houston Toads Chirping
And A Toby The Red Panda In A Tree
Stay tuned to our blogs as we count down the 12 Days of Christmas at the Houston Zoo.