Animal Influx: July 2017

Developing a New Brew, Gorilla-Style
June 29, 2017

Yarrow’s spiny lizard Photo by Megan Holmstedt

Comings and goings at your Zoo in April and May.

Bird Hatchings

Bird hatchings included four California condors, five black-headed weavers, two blue-breasted kingfishers, a Cape thick-knee, a roadrunner, and three greater flamingos.

Reptile Hatchings

Reptile hatchings included a knob-tailed gecko and four phantasmal poison dart frogs. A litter of Yarrow’s spiny lizards was born.

Baby Mammals Spotlight

Many of our new arrivals came with hooves, including a second mountain bongo calf, four Chacoan peccaries, a Sichuan takin, four Tadjik markhors, five Nubian ibex, two bighorn sheep, a pudu, and a black duiker. But not all of them had hooves—two crested capuchin monkeys were also born.

Arrivals

A California condor in need of medical care arrived, as well as a number of new collection birds: two chestnut teals, a male sarus crane, and a pair of female ostriches, which have joined the male in a mixed-species exhibit that also includes lesser kudu and a yellow-backed duiker. A male California sea lion transferred in from Houston Zoo. Other arrivals included two addax antelope, six rock hyraxes, and four Indian gharials. A group of 22 poison dart frogs (some quite rare) were received, and they will eventually take up residence in Rainforest of the Americas. A group of invertebrates arrived for the LAIR—a desert blond tarantula, a giant desert centipede, and five desert hairy scorpions.

In May, an illegal wildlife confiscation at LAX brought a group of eight songbirds to the Zoo: a Bali starling, a black-collared starling, a golden-crested mynah, a golden-fronted leafbird, a Javan mynah, two red-billed blue magpies, and a yellow-breasted magpie.

Departures

Among the outgoing birds were two sacred ibises, a laughing kookaburra, a Ross’s turaco, an East African crowned crane, three Chilean flamingos, a wattled crane, and a Cape thick-knee. Reptiles and amphibians transferring out included four Catalina Island rattle-less rattlesnakes, one South American bushmaster, four knob-tailed geckos, six groups of splendid tree frogs, and two groups of Australian red-eyed tree frogs. Mammals moving to other institutions included a yellow-footed rock wallaby, two woylies (a.k.a. brush-tailed bettongs), a Prevost’s squirrel, a rock hyrax, a Chinese goral, a Sichuan takin, and a Nigerian dwarf goat.