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Category: Africa

Domestic Rabbit

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Domestic Rabbit

(Oryctolagus cuniculus)

The Zoo is home to one domestic rabbit as part of our Ambassador Animal collection. 

Animal Facts

Brown coat, with black and gray sprinkled throughout. Their underside is paler gray. This color helps them camouflage within their environments.
They have a short tail that has a white underside. The white undertail can serve as a beacon to warn other rabbits that a predator is there. Additionally, their tail can be used to confuse predators. The white tail will be a point of focus for the predator so as the rabbit zigzags and takes sharp turns it will be hard for the predator to keep focus on that one spot.
European rabbits are primarily crepuscular, being most active around dawn and dusk. They sleep on average 8 hours a day in short bursts. Additionally, they will sleep with their eyes open to keep an eye out for potential predators, using their nictitating membrane to keep their eyes moist.
Rabbits communicate with each other through physical, vocal, and chemical cues. One important physical cue would be standing up on hind legs, ears straight, and nose rapidly twitching. This signals to other rabbits that they need to be alert and potentially be ready to run because a threat may be nearby
Female rabbits experience postpartum estrus allowing them to reproduce quickly. Females are also capable of rejecting the fetus or reabsorb the embryo if conditions are not ideal for reproduction. Females can produce 7-8 liters per year.

Diet

Herbivore. Grasses, leaves, flowers, bark, roots, grains, vegetables, cecotropes, pellets, timothy hay, greens and veggies.

Status in The Wild

  • Endangered (native range)

International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List status

Domestic rabbit natural habitats include grassland, shrubland, savanna, forest. Their range extends the Iberian Peninsula (including Spain, Portugal, and southwestern France), western France, and the northern Atlas Mountains in Northwest Africa.

Introduced countries: Albania, Algeria, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Chile, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Morocco, Namibia, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, United States.

They prefer mixed habitats of Mediterranean oak savanna or scrub-forest, or areas with around 40% cover for shelter from predators and open areas that support their diet of grasses and cereals. They are also often found in areas with high density of managed farmland. Soft soil is preferred for building warrens and in rockier habitats they will often use scrubs as their shelter.

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Ring-neck Parakeet

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Ring-neck Parakeet

(Psittacula krameri)

Seneca Park Zoo is the home to one female ring-neck parakeet named Stella. Her habitat is inside the annex as part of the program animal collection.

Animal Facts

Ring-neck parakeets have a green body with a red beak. They have a long, pointed tail that can be up to 10 inches long, more than half of the body's length.
Gregarious and loud. These birds use a shared roost throughout the year. The number of parakeets in the roost during spring decreases dramatically because the female birds stay on their nests while the males return to the roost. They do not migrate and are well adapted to living in areas that are affected by humans.
They have been kept as pets since ancient Greek and Roman times. Alexandrine parakeets (a close relative of the ring-neck parakeet) are named after Alexander the Great, who transported these birds from India to Europe.

Diet

Ring-neck parakeets  are herbivorous, feeding on buds, seeds, grains, fruits, vegetation, and nuts.

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Status in The Wild

  • Least Concern

International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List status

Ring-neck parakeets range widely throughout Central Africa, India, and neighboring countries.

This parrot is not very picky when it comes to its habitat, inhabiting light secondary forest, riparian woodland, mangroves, savanna grasslands, and deserts. They are often found on farms, in urban and suburban environments, and in parks and gardens.

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White Rhino

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White Rhino

(Ceratotherium simum)

Seneca Park Zoo is home to one southern white rhinoceros named Jiwe. He was born in December, 2016 at Fossil Rim Wildlife Center in Texas and came to the Zoo in 2020. The rhino habitat is located in Animals of the Savanna.

Experience: Rhino Encounter

Animal Facts

The white rhino is one of five species of rhinos. The others are the Javan rhino, the Sumatran rhino, the Indian rhino and the black rhino.
Full-grown adult white rhinos weigh between 5,000 to 7,000 pounds and measure 6-feet tall at the shoulders.
Our white rhino is fed 10 pounds of grain, 5 pounds of produce (lots of bananas!) and hay every day.
The name white rhino comes from the Dutch words “wijd” or “weit,” meaning wide and refers to their wide, square shaped upper lip.
Rhinos have a poor vision. They can see movement, but not details more than 100 feet away. They do, however, have excellent hearing and a keen sense of smell which enables them to detect odors up to a mile away.

Diet

Grasses, fruits and grain are the primary foods.
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Status in The Wild

  • Near Threatened

International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List status

The squared lip that the white rhino is named for is an adaptation to the African grasslands that it grazes for food.

The rhino is built to graze the open grasslands and floodplains in pockets of eastern and southern Africa. When the rhino Species Survival Plan committee decides where to place rhinos in facilities, a number of factors come into play, including the rhino’s age, sex, genetics and exhibit availability.

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