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.....

Mr Grant, in person.

Here are a few work videos of me taken over the years at my job at ZSL London Zoo.

Here you can see some of the fantastic animals I've worked with, and the super cool hair cuts I've had during this time.

The first clip is of the giant anteaters Myrmecophaga tridactyla. Here with my short "silver fox" hair,
 (grey..) 
I chat about something that doesn't really need any words.

 

 The next clip is of the two rheas we had, Lefty and Bert. The same hair, the same day. 

Naked mole rats Heterocephalus glaber are possibly one of the most complex species you can get. The more you know about them the less you feel you understand. This is the colony I worked with at the BUGS! exhibit at the zoo.

The Galapagos tortoises are one my favorite animals, and I think my enthusiasm, and hair stand out.

    

This is the annual stocktake we make of all the animals at the zoo each year, I'm only in a few seconds of the film (not worth watching you cry? Well check out 34, and 115 seconds in) but theres lots of other fantastic animals and amazing people to see.
(But dull hair cuts...)

And lastly, for now, here's the two newest additions to our tortoise group, Polly and Priscilla,

as for the hair? Well, I'm now wearing a hat a lot....

Birgus latro, the robber crab.

Here are a few videos of the Birgus latro that recently arrived at Chessington World of Adventure Zoo.

The first video shows him being removed from his temporary quarters for him to be checked (and for me to get excited over!) He has been housed offshow while his main enclosure is re-themed and "crab proofed"!

                                                                                  

The next video Keith talks about trying to reward the crab when it's taken out of its enclosure, the aim to be making it a pleasurable experience not a stressful one.

                                                                              

The final video has an even shakier camera while I move to stroke the crab, Keith's observations make me love this species even more (even if it hates me...)

What can you say? One of "The list"..

:)

Budgetts frog, Lepidobatrachus laevis.

This is my male budgetts frog, which I am about to brumate. This is his last meal, a small trout.

As mentioned in the YouTube info, he normally gets fed fresh water fish or insects, very rarely mammalian prey items. This is because I doubt he would eat many mice in the wild.
But who knows?
Look at the way he uses his hands to manipulate food, what an amazing animal!
:)

The X- (blog) files, 1 of 1.

As my myriad of faithful followers know, I have set up the now world famous YouTube site “SebastiansAnimals” where I post any clips I think of interest to other animal keepers, however I do have lots of clips that are of poorer quality or may only be of interest to someone reading this blog. 

As I really dislike wading through lots of poor quality or pointless videos on YouTube I will now post this type of clip under the banner SebastiansAnimals, followed by a number and a subtitle, just for you.

This collection of clips are videos I think are interesting or fun but not worth putting on to YouTubes main stream site, and as the titles basically the same on all it wont get picked up when people search and they then dont watch a poor quality video.

I will try and give a full description in the title so you don't have to waste your time too, but please bear with me.

 A new mix of  Kaiser's Spotted Newt Neurergus kaiseri, black banded sunfish Enneacanthus chaetodon and cherry barbs Puntius titteya. (poor quality).

 

        Only just put together and it may not work as the sunfish may be too feisty,                           but what a great mix if it does!

Acrocordus javanicus being force fed, not a great quality video and nothing better than you'll see on the web elsewhere. But this is one of the snakes I mention in the blog, obviously not happy but still alive.

 

My large "community" fish tank.

Housing my red dragon Scleropages formosus, Fly river turtles Carettochelys insculpta and a mix of freshwater tropicals from around the world (but mainly bred in Singapore!)

Although the mix is quite eclectic its a lot more peaceful than a biotope tank housing lots of large cichlids or even a species tank where things are breeding and beating each other up. The only real problem tends to be when new fish go in and the arowana thinks they're dinner or when the Fly rivers decide to scrap which can be quite often, hence their ragged appearance.
Surprisingly the fish it didn't work with was a shoal of giant hatchets Triportheus angulatus. Although one of the fastest fish I've seen they were picked off over a couple of nights. Not a good time at Grant Towers.

Neurergus kaiseri being kept aquatic and fed on bloodworm. Notice how snappy they are, unlike their normal calm behavior when kept terrestrial.

Until the fish were added to their tank I tended to feed them once or twice a week, where as now the fish get offered food most days. Not always food stuffs that the newts would take but definitely four or five times a week it would be frozen or live Daphnia or bloodworm. 
It will be interesting to see if the newts become less aggressive at feeding times if they are not soo hungry, this has been a possible explanation for the aggressive behavior of many reef fishes kept in aquaria, instead of having small amounts of food flowing by almost constantly, the fish get offered large amounts a few times a day. A very unnatural situation for smaller species leading to grumpy fish!
Some places, such as the wonderful Horniman Museum have a drip of food going into their reef tanks to offer the Anthisas sp. the chance to feed all day.

http://www.horniman.ac.uk/

Neoceratodus forsteri and Helicops angulatus

Nothing very exciting happening at Grant Towers at the moment, unless of course you think getting 2 Australian lungfish Neoceratodus forsteri and having 6 Helicops angulatus born is cool?

What can I say? Everyone has their “list” the animals they want to see, work with or keep, mine is long and I've been very lucky to have seen, worked with or kept a lot of them. From Komodo dragons, humming birds and giant tortoises to octopus, ants and giraffes.

Still waiting on a giant salamander but I suppose you can’t just get all your dreams too early, can you?

I remember seeing an Aussie lungfish at ZSL London Zoo Aquarium at least 25 years ago, and have wanted one ever since. Years later, now having a computer and finding out with some surprise that there was more on the Internet than just smut I started a Google search to see if I could get one.

One company had them for sale but not surprisingly they were in Australia and would only sell them in groups of fives. I did offer to pay the freight etc in full but only buy 2 but this wasn’t allowed.

A grumpy frustrated Sebby went back to his old ways on the Internet….

Many years passed and I heard that someone was going to import some so I asked if it was possible to add an extra 2 to the group for myself, imagine my joy when this was agreed!

And soon li’l Sebby and Sebrina made their way to their new home at The Towers.

For such a slow moving fish they do have a very strong reaction if spooked, they are good at taking food from tweezers or fingers if offered slowly but will swim wildly if you move too quickly.

They feed on a large range of foods, i'm offering pelleted foods, shrimp, earthworm and surprisingly peas and cut up fruit, all normally taken well.

The Helicops were not too much of a surprise as id seen what I took to be courtship behavior where the smaller male appears to “stick” to the female. Swimming along beside her with his chin resting against her body, it reminded me of a remora soo much so I caught the male out to see if there was any rougher scales or anything else that may help him keep a hold!

 

 Helicops angulatus courtship behavior, in this clip you can see the male trying to stay with the female. (sorry for the poor quality).

I had found 2 eggs in the water which I was surprised at as I thought they were live bearing. I did try and incubate them but not surprisingly they collapsed very soon after.

The juveniles were separated into a small plastic tank, where they remained mainly aquatic and sloughed a week later.

 Helicops angulatus juveniles one week old.

Obviously more information to come.

Acrochordus

My history with Acrochordus is short and painful, and although even a short internet search will show this species is difficult to keep to say the least, that didn’t stop me jumping at the chance to get some, 3 times…

I have over the last year or so, since I started keeping/killing this species started to write lots of things about what I've done and what I think I should have done. Looking back it seems clear that;

• The animals I've received have not generally been in good condition. 
•  The internet information on this species is poor (or confusing). 
•  I shouldn’t have bought these snakes, or at least the second, or third group. 
•  A fool and his money etc. etc….

The first 2 I received were in poor condition with the fungal infection that seems synonymous with this species, both were thin and had granular marks on their head and bodies.

1) Blisters on the body.

2) Granular marks on the body.

                                                                                                                                            




The jury was out on how they should be kept*, I went for a 75 x 30 cm wide tank with about 10cm of water, heated to 28-30oC, with a small internal filter.

Although it was believed the snakes had probably come from a brackish/marine habitat I was worried about housing them brackish long term due to dehydration. However I thought the fungal infection may be kept at bay by offering salt water. I compromised by alternating the salinity.
Every time I did a water change I changed the SG, sometime making it totally fresh then swinging towards brackish and then on a couple of occasions to nearly full strength sea water.

Substrate was silver sand, bog wood and plastic pipes for hiding in; the snakes have normally favored the sand, burying themselves in the sand, under the wood or a pipe. Although the tank had a mature filter added, due to the changes in salinity I doubt this was functioning properly but as I was doing regular large water change to increase/decrease the salinity I didn’t notice any increase in NH3 or NO2. Basically the filter was there to move the water around a bit and to make me feel better.
There was no lighting except for ambient lighting from the room and the tanks were frequently shaded over at least one end to darken them further.

As these were soo thin I started to tube feed them a mix of Hills a/d diet, Nutrabal (calcium and mineral mix) and glucose, all mixed together in a thin gruel. This was quite easy to begin with but as their strength increased it became more difficult.

They were tube fed every 4 or 5 days for a few weeks then we tried force feeding small fish. These were either pre-killed guppies or mollies or small shop brought frozen fish such as lance fish (probably Ammodytes tobianus.)

These were all pushed quite far into the snakes body to stop them regurgitating but after a couple of months the snakes would normally swallow the food after it had been pushed just past their heads.

Then, one day both snakes started to actively swallow the food as it was placed in their mouths, this continued with the “fussiest” one from then on, while within a week the stronger animal started to feed on live fish placed into its tank.
By then the markings on both of their bodies had started to fade and the snakes looked much better.

3) The darker snakes marks starting to fade.

4) The lighter snake.

At first the water level had to be dropped so the fish would be splashing around if the snake was near, but after another month of this the snake would catch fish easily in the full 10cm deep water.

5) The stronger snake catching live fish.

At this time the weaker snake’s skin started to break out with the fungal infection again. It then developed stomatitis, started to rapidly decline in condition and died soon after.  The other snake was going from strength to strength.

I then saw more A. granulatus for sale from a different supplier and ordered 4; these arrived looking in good condition except for the solid looking crust over each of their heads. These snakes should not have been sold.

6) Granular markings easily visible on their heads

After contacting the supplier and finding out they had been caught in full strength sea water I tried this for a while but within a week 1 had died and within 2 weeks all were dead.

The original snake was doing fine, but then the fungal infection flared up again and it died very soon after. This I believe was caused by cross contamination by me, even though I serviced the new snakes last and tried to keep everything separate. A very frustration time.

May 2012.

I received 4 Acrochordus granulatus and 2 Acrochordus javanicus.

All the snakes appeared very healthy except for one A. granulatus that had stomatitis which had been treated, this wasn’t actually for sale but I bought it as I wanted more snakes and its overall condition appeared good. Due to lack of space I had to house the granulatus together and the 2 javanicus together. My only real concern was being able to tell the snakes apart after feeding.

Housing;

The A. granulatus were kept in the same style as before, while the A. javanicus were initially housed the same but in totally fresh water, then the water level was increased over a few weeks.

Acrochordus granulatus;

First dead snake after 6 days, second on the 7^th day. Both appear to have the granular markings appearing on their heads. I did a large water change with salt water and darkened the sides even more. Both the dead snakes had been very active, the third much less so and the forth very quiet.

On the 7^th day I force fed both of the others, the biggest most active snake appears to be about to slough (reddish tinge to its skin) and regurgitated. The second snake kept it down.

6 weeks later.

The last granulatus died yesterday, it hadn’t fed on its own and hadn’t sloughed either. I think they may need to slough, possibly repeatedly to rid the fungal infection but if not feeding it may lessen their ability to shed?

Possibly a more aggressive feeding regime may help this, the first 2 were force fed quite often and they did shed and survived longer.

The javanicus are still alive and active, one has had a strange looking mark around one eye, it looks a bit like a knock and I’m hoping it will slough it off when it sheds.

7) javanicus with mark around one eye, possibly caused by knocking into something?

(In the article by Lilywhite (Lilywhite 1996) he mentions javanicus caught in sea water getting an opaque cover to their eye lens if kept in freshwater, this condition doesn’t appear to be the same as my animal has and, as its only one snake and one eye I am reluctant to increase the salinity.)

*I couldn’t find a lot of real information on the captive care of this species that I would believe, there is one person who has done very well with them, Dr. Harvey B. Lilywhite who had a paper published in Zoo biology 15: 315-327 (1996). I would recommend if you want to keep this species you read, re-read and then every so often read this again.

A lot of what I have read on them I have found rather difficult to believe. Sites saying they have kept a species for a few weeks or months before they died but then telling us how to keep them. I have kept this species for a few weeks or months and then they died, so if you keep them like I did, yours may too!

I write to say what I’ve done and if it went well, with the file snakes I think my husbandry was possibly OK, but I may have had snakes in poor condition when I got them and my husbandry wasn’t good enough to let them get over this.

The main internet site for this species has recently updated its info and is now much better, however I still have trouble reading it due to its apparent assumptions, poor grammar and, (in my opinion) poor guidelines. And if you read something and notice that some thing's seem wrong, how much will you believe the rest?

As I say in my profile information, the internet has been a massive help in animal husbandry in recent years, but it is this species and the misinformation on it that has made me want to write more than any other.
Seeing pictures or videos you’ve taken on the web is great and a bit of a buzz, but as sites have no peer review it becomes difficult to know who to listen to, especially when they all seem to say they know the most.

There are some interesting videos on YouTube, but there really doesn’t seem the wealth of (honest) info there should be for a difficult animal. Surely people should be posting about how or how not to keep these and not adding another poor quality video that people have to wade through trying to find the good ones?

Come on people, look at your film and think is it really worth people spending their time looking at it when they are trying to learn?

I hope mine are, I have LOTS of footage of my animals or of me doing really cool stuff but it’s really only of interest to me, so I don’t post it. That’s why I have pictures of some of my animals rather than videos, I’d have to upload the videos onto YouTube and then people may watch them when they are just looking for general info. If you’re reading this blog I want you to see what I’m talking about but you don’t have to look at lots of clips that tell you nothing. So I plan, with my YouTube vid’s that when I see better ones I’ll delete mine. OK, rant over (for now).

I was speaking to a very experience veterinarian recently about the granulatus and the trials of keeping them. He asked when it was going to become accepted that perhaps this species isn’t suited to captivity. Although I greatly respect this man and would trust his judgment above most others, I do think this species can and will be kept, BUT it really shouldn’t be an “off the shelf” purchase.

They should be imported only by suppliers who have strong contacts in the snake’s home range who can guarantee what conditions the snake were caught in, salinity, temperature etc. And that the animals were well cared for before shipping. They should have been pre-ordered by experienced hobbyists or zoo professionals who will honestly share their experiences with others.

20 years ago, when I started working in the aquatic retail industry we used to say that Acropora's were impossible to keep but sold Goniopora’s  and Catalaphyllia as an easy to keep corals because they live for months or even years.

Now, Acroporas are sent through the post as frags and although far from easy they are very keep-able.

To sum up my ideas on the granulatus, based on what I have read, seen done by others and by my own experiences.

• Keep them warm; 28-30oC
• Dark, lots of hiding places and subdued lighting.
• Soft sandy substrate, my animals tended to burrow into this rather than hide in the pipes provided.
• Probably feed frequently to begin, especially if the snakes appear weak or have bad fungal growth, this MAY help them slough more frequently and lessen the infection.
• Don’t buy them!

Postscript 01.07.2012;

The A. javanicus are still alive, neither has shown interest in food so have both been force fed twice, which they have kept down.

Pictures 1-4 by Jane Hallam.