London April 2015

Sebastian Grant on work and home life in London.

So!

How green is my best friend?*

Although keeping animals is not the "greenest" thing you can do for your planet, a lot of studies have shown that people around animals tend to have better health, or feel they have a better quality of life.

In which case;

I expect to live for a very long time.

I work around some of the most amazing animals on the planet, and at home I keep a few other amazing animals.

What we call, a win, win.

A few montages of life at Grant Towers so far this year.

April

March

Obviously works great, loads going on as always, including the recent arrival of Professor Wu, the Chinese giant salamander. 

Andrias davidianus

Here's me offering him food soon after he arrived.

With thanks to Cat1 for photography.

Rinca and Raja

 Komodo dragons

Varanus komodoensis

The two dragons were put together, and they didn't get on too well.

Rinca

Varanus komodoensis

A Komodo dragon walking around Central London
(Don't panic, it's in his outdoor paddock!)

One of the many things in my day to make me stop and feel grateful.

king cobra

Ophiophagus hannah

Here the king cobra is moved into a temporary enclosure while his old one is re-themed.

Amazing.

*There has been a lot of talk has been about a recent article in NewScientist

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20427311.600-how-green-is-your-pet.html

Although keeping animals at home is certainly not the greenest thing you can do, I do feel this paper doesn't cover the whole issue.

To see a slightly less biased view on this issue please read this.

http://www.ethicalconsumer.org/buyersguides/food/dogfood.aspx

Another update, October 2014

Due to increased social and work demands I'm afraid I have been rather slack on the news from

 Grant Towers lately. 

I realize it may be better to get some of my videos onto the world wide web, rather than risk them being lost for prosperity if my home computer crashes from looking at dodgy sites!

A few clips of Grant Towers and ZSL animals.

Possibly chytrid infection on mossy frogs.

This clip shows my Theloderma corticale with what I believe to have been a chytrid infection (Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis also known as Bd). The frogs had been more active during the day, including one seen sitting in the water when they are normally sleeping higher up.

They also seemed to have more problems walking on the glass, as though their feet wouldn't stick as well. 

Some of the frogs in the clip seems to have a thickening of the skin and a wet appearance, which I have taken to mean the possible infection.

I treated with the athletes foot treatment "Lamisil" and within 3 days noted a marked improvement., after 5 days all "symptoms"  were gone. I continued the treatment for a further 5 days.

However, as I didn't swab the frogs I can't be sure the infection was Bd.

I would like to thank Christopher Micheals for his very quick and helpful advice.

Pipa pipa, the Suriname toad.

Australian swamp eel
Ophisternon gutturale

A new addition to a tank I've started for Anableps anableps, amazing tunnelers, they act a bit like a brackish garden eel! 

Not aggressive and feeding on Tetra discus, live Tubifex and frozen bloodworm.

Mainly uploaded because there's not much on them here. They seem easy to keep, slightly brackish, hence the Anableps. 

The main interest is about 40 seconds in and near the end, about 2 minutes in.

This doesn't show their amazing burrowing ability, they dig in and seem to be able to go forwards or reverse with equal ease!

Kew Gardens

The Princess of Wales Conservatory

Zone 8

Carnivorous plants.

Mainly Nepenthes and a few ferns and amazing Selaginella, this is a lovely addition to the Kew glass houses.

Lithobates catesbeianus
Albino American bullfrog

Not to everybodies taste, but I really like these frogs.

Very nervous and skittish when young, bold during the day but flighty when the lights are off. 

They will eat pretty much anything they can overpower but seem to do OK with feeder insects (not the live mammalian prey other people post them feeding on, small penis syndrome perhaps?)

I use an Arcadia T5 12%  with a reading of around 1- 1.5 UVI above half  the tank, hopefully this will stop any developmental issues but is low enough to not cause eye problems.

Top frog.....
And isnt it funny how everybody loves red eyed tree frogs, but not red eyed bullfrogs....

Work, Rest and Film...

More clips taken at ZSL London Zoo.

Its been a busy few months here at Grant Tower's, with working super hard, checking things at home (staff can be soo difficult) and living La Vida Loca (dancing like your dad) that this account of my antics has been quiet.
Fear not, here is a clip from the ZSL website showing my colleague and I, Luke Harding with our
second male Komodo dragon, Rinca.
Our first male Raja has been at the zoo for around 10 years and is amazing, beautiful, calm and could kill you.
Rinca is stunning, alert and probably would kill you....
Here we go into the exhibit with Rinca to show how careful training and professional skills (Luke's obviously) can help the staff management of the animal while spicing up Rinca's life.

Not too much of me, probably a good thing as I look quite chubby.

These are of the caiman lizard, Dracaena guianensis a specialised snail eater from South America.

Here's the official zoo video of the caiman lizard, rather better put together than mine, the only down side?
Mr Grant in view...

Easily one of my favorite animals at the zoo (although i do seem to say that a lot..) 

Watching this animal feed, the way it takes the snails and delicately rolls them around in its mouth always makes me stop and remember how amazing the world is,

unless your that snail.

Here you can see him hunt underwater, using his tongue to search out the prey which is then taken on to land to eat.

(Please excuse the music, it was either dodgy YouTube tunes or loud kids screaming in that mix of delight and disgust they do soo well.)

Its thought in the wild this species eats crayfish as well as various mollusk species, and very possibly a wide range of other things too. However, from what we know snails appear to be the primary food and this should be mimicked in captivity where possible, and if not possible, they probably shouldn't be kept until we know more about their nutritional needs and how to substitute them
As snails are difficult or expensive to obtain, many keepers offer a range of other foodstuffs, from other invertebrates, turkey meat, eggs and even cat food!
If this is harmful or not is difficult to assess, but the specimen I saw that was fed on cat food was obese and was a dull grey color, not the vibrant red and green of our specimen.
Snails brought for a supplier who caters the the human food trade normally starve the snails before selling so they are ready to eat. This means that before use you should offer them a range of good quality vegetables before feeding to the lizard.
Frozen snails are available but again will have been starved before freezing so less useful nutritionally, while snails collected from the wild may harbor parasites so it may be worth keeping for a while to help shed any possible problems.

Here is the same animal finding crayfish underwater.

Work, rest, and play.

ZSL London Zoo 

 Clips I've taken at work at ZSL London Zoo over the last year or so.

Either from behind the scenes or from the visitor's side.*

 Xenopus longipes in ampexus

Xenopus longipes are a poorly know frog of the Pipidae family, these frogs are currently housed at the Herpetology department of ZSL London Zoo which is one of the only collections to hold them. Although seemingly easy to care for very little is known about their breeding. We are getting set to trial different sex ratio groups, different temperatures and water levels. Watch this space. 

This was one of the few times we have seen them in amplexus, and look at little Sebby hang on!!

 Scheltopusik

These scheltopusik or European glass lizards Pseudopus apodus have been in the zoos collection for years, soo much character and soo interesting a story.

Nothing too exciting in the clip, just hunting crickets and showing how surprising it is that they manage to catch anything.

Philippine crocodile Crocodylus mindorensis

The pair of Philippine crocodile Crocodylus mindorensis at the zoo are going to be introduced for breeding, and as they've been kept separately we wanted to house them near each other so we could judge their behavior.
The slightly larger female is very bold and we were worried she may dominate (i.e. try to kill) the male.
 The male, seen here on the right, asserts himself straight away giving us more confidence in a successful outcome.

You can just hear me using my radio to call my colleagues to come and see as I'm soo pleased at his behavior.

Varanus komodoensis, the Komodo dragons at the zoo.

Raja and Rinca have been put together for breeding a few times now but with no success. This time we tied a carcass to a tree to hopefully get them used to being together.

My colleague Grant and I enter to get a better view, it's without a doubt the closest I'll ever get to
Jurassic park!

"And at that point"...

 Grant and I re-enter the paddock to see how they are getting along.

As we get near they have had their fill and start the mating ritual again,
(basically chasing and biting, we've all been there.... )
And its at that point, discretion becomes the better part of valour and we beat a hasty retreat.

 Puff adder, giving birth.

The Bitis arietans at the zoo recently gave birth on exhibit. We have planned to move them that day so we could monitor the female but as always, things go faster than planned and the call went out the the female was giving birth.

You can see the first youngster cruising around the enclosure but then at 53 seconds in, little Sebby makes his appearance.

 

 

*On my Kodiak play-sport, the screen is a bit cracked so I cant always see what I'm filming, so you may see more knees and walls than you'd expect.....