The fun will start at the Zoo at 10:00AM.  On both Saturday and Sunday there will be booths, children’s activities and zookeeper chats about bats.  On Saturday only there will be a bat seminar with some awesome speakers from 10:00-12:15 in the Brown Education Center.   

In addition, to help celebrate, The Naturally Wild Swap Shop will be giving double points for any Nature Journal on bats.  Dont know about the Swap Shop?  Click here for more information. 

The best part – all this is included in your paid zoo admission.

The festivities won’t stop there.  Be sure to join the Houston Bat Team at the Waugh Drive bat colony (corner of Waugh Drive & Allen Parkway) from 6:00-9:00PM.  The Waugh Drive bridge is home to a colony of 250,000 Mexican Free-tailed Bats.  There will be bat chat presentations from members of the Bat Team along with children’s activities and an amazing emergence from the bats at dusk. Click here to check Facebook for parking info.

FUN FROG FACTS:

• Not all frogs can leap, or even hop. The desert rain frog (Breviceps macrops) has legs that are too short to hop. Instead, it walks.
• Male frogs of the genus Pipa are known to defend their territory by jumping at and then wrestling other males.
• The New Guinea bush frog (Asterophrys turpicola) takes jump attacks one step further: before it jumps at a strange frog, it inflates itself and shows off its blue tongue.
• Stumpffia tridactyla are normally slow-moving critters, but when they’re startled they can abruptly jump up to 8 inches. That doesn’t sound very far, but these little guys are less than half an inch long!
• The Fuji tree frog (Platymantis vitiensis) may be the leaping stuntman of the frog world. Each time it leaps, it twists in the air—sometimes even 180 degrees—to throw predators off its trail.
• The Larut torrent frog (Amolops larutensis) gets its name from a nifty leaping trick: it can jump into a fast-moving stream and back to its usual perch, the underside of a rock, without being affected by the current.
• Similarly, the parachuting red-eyed leaf frog (Agalychnis saltator) gets its name because it speeds to mating opportunities by jumping from trees with finger-and toe-webbing spread wide.
• The record for longest jump by an American bullfrog (Rana catesbeiana) recorded in a scientific paper is a little over 4 feet. But scientists who went to the Calaveras County Fair, which Mark Twain’s short story made famous for frog jumping, found that more than half the competitors bested that record—and one jumped more than 7 feet in one leap!
• The Guinness Book of World Records doesn’t include any frogs for their leaping ability. But it does track human performance in frog jumping (jumping while holding one’s toes). There are records listed for the longest frog jump and the fastest frog jumping over 10 and 100 meters.

In honor of Leap Day celebration coordination efforts by Amphibian Ark, the Panama Amphibian Rescue and Conservation Project made this video for a frog song written by Alex Culbreth.

Post By Meghan Bartels, Panama Amphibian Rescue and Conservation Project

Join the Houston Zoo on Saturday, March 3 as we celebrate Aurora’s first birthday!

On Saturday, March 3 from 9:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m. the Houston Zoo will be celebrating orangutan Aurora’s birthday at her home in Wortham World of Primates. Enjoy crafts and singing, watch Aurora eat her birthday cake, sign a giant birthday card just for her, and learn about orangutan conservation. You’ll also hear from those who know Aurora best – our Primate Staff will conduct special Meet the Keeper Talks every 30 minutes to share stories about Aurora and her development throughout this past year.

Schedule of Events:

9 a.m. – 2 p.m. – Crafts and conservation information available

9:30 a.m. – Aurora gets her birthday cake and meet the Keeper Talks begin, and are every 30 minutes

1:30 p.m. – Sing Happy Birthday to Aurora; last orangutan Meet the Keeper Talk of the day

Want to give Aurora a birthday gift? The Primate Staff have provided a list of items that Aurora and the other orangutans would love to have for enrichment.

Here is her birthday wishlist:

• Fabric – sheets, pillowcases, and blankets
• Plastic buckets
• Basketballs, soccer balls, and beach balls
• Spices and herbs – cinnamon, basil, parsley, and dill weed
• Chalk (non-toxic)
• Latex rubber tubing (available from McMaster-Carr)

*If you are bringing a present, please be sure that it is in its original wrapping.

You can also purchase enrichment presents from our Primate Registry.

All activities are included in the regular Zoo admission and are FREE for Zoo Members!

Come help us celebrate!

"Which way to the Boboli Gardens? My Italian sweetheart is waiting on the statue of Neptune!"

This competition is really heating up!  You were all correct, Jeffery did indeed make it to Florence, Italy. 

As we recently celebrated Valentine’s Day, I thought it might be fitting to tell you that humans can learn quite a bit about relationships from the Philippine Eagle!  Check out this article, written by staff at the Philippine Eagle Foundation about how these magnificent birds pair up, court, and care for their young!

Also, as a little added incentive, I thought I’d show you another one of the prizes that will be included:

Now in their twilight years, the chance of more cubs has passed for Patty and Willie but as long time companions they do not like to be separated from each other for too long. Although Patty occasionally needs some alone time, which she orchestrates by going into the moat where Willie typically doesn’t go, they can often be seen snoozing together. Patty makes wonderful fluffy nests which Willie promptly plops down in. Patty then proceeds to make an even bigger and fluffier nest for herself! It seems to be a system that works for them.

Come by the Andean bear exhibit over Valentine’s Day and congratulate Patty and Willie on 25 blissful years!

Thank you to everyone who participated in the first week of our blog contest! Don’t forget, this contest will continue each Monday morning until the first weekend of May, when we host our Bird of Prey Days! Keep competing, and tell your friends!

The next installment of the competition will post at 10 AM Central time, on Monday the 13th of February.  We will also be revealing another part of the prize!

In the meantime, if you just can’t get enough Philippine Eagle in your life, please visit our good friends at Jeepney Projects Worldwide! They are part of a growing group of talented individuals working hard to save the most majestic eagle in the world!  David Tomb has recently opened an art exhibit titled The Vanishing Birds of the Philippines.  I’ll give you one guess what bird is in a starring role! The artwork is breathtaking; you simply must take a look!

Now on to our rankings:

Tess pulled ahead this week, earning 7 points for guessing where Jeffery was, and 8 points for her caption!

Melissa is right behind her with a total of 15 points, after earning 5 points this week.

Paul came in first with the quickest answer and has skyrocketed to 12 points!

Wendy has a total of 8 points.

Carmen has a total of 7 points.

Our newcomer Linda snuck in there with 2 points.  We hope to see you next Monday Linda!  It’s still a cinch to catch up!

Choosing the caption was very difficult; you guys are good!  I look forward to next week!

Get more Jeffery updates on Facebook and follow him on Twitter!

A bird and his puppet. Kinda.

Last Friday we posted our weekly Foto Friday pic and invited you to leave your best caption in the comment section. Then readers “liked” each caption comment to vote for their favorites. Their votes determined the caption to appear under the picture right here on the Official Houston Zoo Blog this week.

YOUR VOTES DETERMINE THE WINNERS!

Here is the picture that was posted along with the top voted caption by Alegra Reich:

Mom, your death stare doesn't seem to work on them the way it does on Dad.

FIRST RUNNER UP:

Kristi Jones: Mommy, why are those humans staring at us??

SECOND RUNNERS UP:

Jane Judd Peikert: Peek a boo, I see you!
Aileen Garcia: What are you staring at? Haven’t you ever seen a two-headed monkey?

Thanks for joining in the fun!

Jayden at The Naturally Wild Swap Shop

 On a recent visit, he brought in some wonderful finds from his trip to Pensacola, Florida.  His items included a Gafftop Sail Catfish skull (also called a crucifix fish due to the bones of the lower part of the skull resembling the form of a crucifix) and sand dollar pieces- along  with an excellent journal on sand dollars reflecting the research he had done.  Jayden, and all of our traders, get extra points for knowledge when they have learned about the item they bring in and can tell us about it.

 The Swap Shop is growing and we now have over 1200 young people trading with us! 

Dont know about trading in The Swap Shop?  Click here to find out more.

We put the birds into their transport crates the night before they depart. We do this for a couple of reasons : the birds will need to be at the airport at 4:45 AM on Monday May 2 and also we want them to have some quiet time to get used to the crates for transport.

The interior of the transport crates, ready for birds.

Crating the birds for the trip to their new home.

When shipping birds we typically send them to their new home as fast as possible.  However, because the golden White-eyes and the Roufus Fantails are so small we need to make sure they have adequate rest prior to each leg of their journey.  So this is what the next 72 + hours will be like for our birds.

Airports are for the birds.

The birds go to Guam on Monday morning, in Guam they will stay for about 20 hours and be taken care of by some bird care experts that are currently on the island from Disney’s Animal Kingdom.  Then they fly on May 3 to Honolulu and 8 of the birds will stay at the Honolulu Zoo.  The other 16 will stay in Honolulu over night where staff from the Honolulu Zoo will feed and care for them.  Finally, mid-day on May 4^th, I catch up with the birds when I land in Honolulu (half-way home) and they will fly with me onto Houston.  In Houston, I will go over to the Continental Airlines Pet Safe area where they will let me feed and care for all the birds again.  Later on the 4^th, the birds will be shipped to their new US zoos: the Memphis Zoo, the Riverbanks Zoo, the North Carolina Zoo and the St. Louis Zoo.

And they make this journey without the benefit of an in-flight movie or drink service.  Compared to their journey, we have it easy.

Once the birds are gone, we only have to clean-up and pack everything to finish.  We scrub all 60 of the holding cages, inventory and pack our supplies, and refresh any supplies that we need for next year.

The final holding cage cleaning for the year.

Drying the holding cages.

The inventory list

All the supplies packed up.

Ready to do it all again next year!

After we complete those tasks – we are hoping to have a few hours of snorkeling. 

Conservation never looked so good.

To read the rest of this blog series about the long journey to and in Saipan, click HERE

Air-Conditioned Animal Ambiance is Here

Chimp Viewing, The African Forest, Houston Zoo

The zoo has many air-conditioned indoor animal viewing areas. When you visit our new African Forest exhibit, cool off in the air-conditioned chimp viewing building. At Kipp Aquarium, cool off while you view an octopus from the chilly waters of the pacific ocean, giant stingrays or our new white-spotted jellyfish. Kids can bring their found items to trade in the Naturally Wild Swap Shop in the Children’s Zoo. In the Natural Encounters building, visit clear pools with four-eyed fish, snake-necked turtles and a cascading waterfall. Don’t miss the dark cave that’s home to a colony of asian fruit bats. The Reptile and Amphibian Building is home to Blanco, one of only fourteen white alligators in existence. You can also cool off in the Tropical Bird House, where you can walk inside an aviary to see and hear many exotic birds from around the world.

Outdoor Climate Control AKA Shade And Mist

Shade at the Children's Zoo Playground, Houston Zoo

The Houston Zoo is home to a forest of ancient oak trees that provide lots of shade. We’ve also placed misting fans  in many spots around the zoo to provide a refreshing cool breeze. In the Carnivores area of the zoo, go underground to cool off in the Lion Exhibit tunnel. There are also shaded viewing areas for lions, tigers and grizzly bears. Wortham World of Primates is set in a forest of old oaks that shade the walkways. Primate viewing also includes several covered pavilions with benches. The Red Panda Tunnel outside of Natural Encounters is a shady place to watch this very cool endangered animal.

Refreshing Respites – Shows, Snacks and Activities

Sweet Treats at the Concession Stands, Houston Zoo

When you need to take a break and rest, there are many cool options around the zoo. The Butterfly Stage in the Children’s Zoo allows guests to enjoy a show in the shade. Take a ride in the shade on the Wildlife Carousel, and guests waving from the sidelines are shaded as well. The Sea Lion Habitat has shaded viewing areas – get there early if you’d like a seat for the show. The Reflection Pool is a shady spot to watch koi fish splash and enjoy a picnic lunch. You may bring a cooler with you or choose from a variety of treats at our concessions. You can bring bottles of ice water with you to sip on while you tour the zoo – outside food and drinks are permitted. Please, no glass bottles or drinking staws. Or enjoy a fresh salad, cool drink, and choose from a variety of lunch items and rest in air-conditioned comfort at Macaw Cafe or the new Twiga Terrace in the African Forest. Before you depart, shop for unique gifts and souvenirs at the gift shops in African Forest and near the front entrance.

We hope you enjoy your cool trip to the zoo! For more ways to chill out this summer, visit TXU Energy presents Chill Out at the Houston Zoo.