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Category: Africa

Kenyan Sand Boa (Ambassador Animal)

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Kenyan Sand Boa (Ambassador Animal)

(Gongylophis colubrinus)

The Zoo is home to one Kenyan Sand Boa as part of our ambassador animal program (habitat not on public display).  

Animal Facts

Kenyan Sand Boas are small snakes that spend most of their time burrowed.
Kenyan Sand Boa’s eyes, nostrils, and mouths are positioned in a way to avoid excess irritation to their eyes and accidental ingestion of sand and soil as they burrow.
Kenyan Sand Boas have blunt tails that are similarly shaped to their heads. This helps to distract a predator from their head.
Kenyan Sand Boas are ambush predators. They hide in the sand with their faces exposed, or under plants and rocks. When prey passes, they quickly strike and pull them underneath the sand, constricting them.
When food is limited, they can survive without eating for up to 1 year.

Diet

Carnivorous. Small mammals, birds, and lizards – their diet includes naked mole rats.

Status in natural range

  • Least Concern

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

Main threats to Kenyan Sand Boas are loss of habitat and illegal collection for the pet trade.

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African Bullfrog (Ambassador Animal)

Posted on by Chandler Scott

African Bullfrog (Ambassador Animal)

(Pyxicephalus adspersus)

The Zoo is home to one African Bullfrog as part of our ambassador animal program (habitat not on public display).  

Animal Facts

African Bullfrogs are the largest species of frog in Southern Africa, and second largest in Africa. Males can grow to 9.5 inches long, and females grow to 4.5 inches, while they can weigh 2-5 pounds.
During the dry season, African Bullfrogs will go into a period of inactivity called estivation that can last from 10 months up to 2 years. They will burrow in the soil and grow a cocoon of skin layers to retain moisture and wait for the rainy season.
Male African Bullfrogs provide parental care by watching over and defending the eggs and tadpoles. They will defend their offspring by jumping at any approaching animals that they perceive as threats.
Large males will duel each other during breeding season, which involves them bellowing loudly and biting each other.
Female African Bullfrogs lay clutches of 1,600 to 4,000 eggs. The eggs hatch in 1-2 days and undergo metamorphosis in 18-33 days. The tadpoles have a limited amount of time to develop before the breeding pools dry up again.

Diet

Carnivorous. Insects, reptiles, small birds and mammals, other frogs. African Bullfrogs are ambush predators. They will sit and wait, in shallow water or mud, and quickly grab prey that comes close. They will eat whatever might fit in their mouths.

Status in The Wild

  • Least Concern

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

This species faces threats of climate change and habitat loss. As climates change, dry seasons may become longer, or the rainy season may not provide enough water to form ponds for reproduction.

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Domestic Rabbit (Ambassador Animal)

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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 (Ambassador Animal)

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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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Ball Python (Ambassador Animal)

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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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Plains Zebra

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Plains Zebra

(Equus quagga)

Seneca Park Zoo is home to three female plains zebra, Lydia, Liberty, and Dottie. Lydia came to the Zoo in November 2018 from Columbus Zoo. Liberty and Dottie arrived together in September 2018 from Hemker Park & Zoo. They share their habitat, located in the Animals of the Savanna area, with the Masai giraffes.

Animal Facts

Each zebra has a unique stripe pattern, helping them to identify each other.
Zebra stripes are thought to create motion camouflage, a method of confusing predators. When a herd of zebras move in multiple directions, their stripes add to the confusion by creating optical illusions.
The quagga, an extinct subspecies of the plains zebra, only had stripes on its neck and head. The body was plain and resembled that of a horse.

Diet

Zebras mainly feed on grass, but sometimes eat shrubs, twigs, bark and leaves.
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Status in The Wild

  • Near Threatened

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

Plains zebra live in savannas, steppes, and woodlands in southern Ethiopia to northern South Africa, throughout most of the eastern side of the Nile River.

Plains Zebras are threatened due to hunting for their skins/fur, especially when they are located out of protected areas. Fencing around agriculture and protected areas block zebra migration corridors, affecting their ability to obtain crucial resources and escape predators.

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Giant Day Gecko

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Giant Day Gecko

(Phelsuma grandis)

Three giant day geckos, one male and two females, can be found inside the C.R.E. building.

Animal Facts

Millions of microscopic structures on the scales of the gecko’s feet, called setae, give these lizards an incredible climbing ability.
The giant day gecko’s bright colors help to camouflage it amidst the vibrant vegetation of the rainforest, useful for ambushing prey in the middle of the day.
When threatened, their colors turn darker, to better hide in the shade of leaves.
Geckos are the only lizards that can produce more than a hiss or other simple sounds. Their vocalizations range from squeaks and clicks to barks and croaks.
They have excellent sight and rely on it to obtain their food.

Diet

Carnivorous. Giant day geckos eat various invertebrates (especially insects), nectar, and occasionally small vertebrates.

Status in The Wild

  • Least Concern

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

The giant day gecko is native to the tropical and subtropical rainforests of Madagascar.

They are found in the uppermost canopies and often near human settlements and cities.

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Golden-Breasted Starling

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Golden-Breasted Starling

(Cosmopsarus regius)

Seneca Park Zoo is home to one golden-breasted starling. It resides in the aviary inside the Animals of the Savanna building.

Animal Facts

The golden-breasted starling is regarded as the most beautiful bird in the world, spurring large-scale capturing for the pet trade.
Their tail makes up about 60% of the bird’s length.
Golden-breasted starlings are cooperative breeders, which means all group members assist with building nests and feeding young.
Will often nest in old woodpecker holes
Diurnal; don’t migrate; very social and noisy like all starlings

Diet

Though primarily insectivores, golden-breasted starlings may also eat snails, spiders, seeds and fruit.

Status in The Wild

  • Least Concern

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

Golden-breasted starlings are found throughout eastern Africa, including Somalia, Ethiopia, Kenya and Tanzania.

They prefer arid or semi-arid climates, and are usually found in savannas and shrublands. Although their population trend is stable, they are facing a threat from overcollection for the pet trade.

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