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Category: Africa

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.

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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Ball Python

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Ball Python

(Python regius)

The Zoo’s male ball python was born in 2009 and came to Seneca Park Zoo in 2013. He is a part of the Zoo’s program animal collection.

Animal Facts

The name ball came from its tendency, when stressed, to curl into a tight “ball” with their heads hidden inside, often for long periods of time!
Due to its limited size, these snakes are becoming increasingly common in the pet trade.
Females tend to be slightly bigger than males.
Sometimes these are referred to as ‘royal pythons’ due to the story that Cleopatra supposedly wore a ball python around her wrist.
Pythons also have the tendency to hiss loudly when threatened.

Diet

Ball pythons feed primarily on rodents, but will also eat other small mammals and birds. Ball pythons only eat once every few weeks; they can go up to several months with no food.

Status in The Wild

  • Vulnerable

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

The ball python lives in western and central Africa. They can be found in open forests and dry savannas.

Usually they reside in areas near open water where they can cool themselves during hot weather.

Ball pythons are considered threatened in the wild. They are a highly-exploited species and are very important to the pet trade because of their beautiful skin. The ball python mates only every two to three years, so more effort is needed to protect and propagate this species.

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Buffalo Weaver

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Buffalo Weaver

(Dinemellia dinemelli)

Seneca Park Zoo is home to two white-headed buffalo weavers. They reside in the aviary, which can be found inside the Animals of the Savanna building.

Animal Facts

Flocks and family groups can sometimes include starlings.
Other bird species, such as the African pygmy falcon, often prefer to use weaver nests instead of building their own.
Weavers typically live in small flocks and build multiple nests, and it is common to see a large number of nests in a single tree.
They are noisy and conspicuous when climbing about in trees and are reminiscent of parrots with their acrobatic maneuvers and habit of hanging upside down.
Nests may have several rooms, with a soft inner lining and thorny branches on the outside to help guard them from predators.

Diet

Buffalo weavers are omnivorous, foraging for fruits, seeds and invertebrates such as beetles and butterflies.

Status in The Wild

  • Least Concern

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

The range of buffalo weavers extends throughout eastern Africa, from Tanzania to Somalia.

They prefer savanna and shrubland habitat, using grass and thorny branches to weave elaborate nests in trees. Potential threats for this species are habitat loss and fragmentation.

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