Where to start, where to start? Oh, yes, continuing the tour, we are back in the Upper west side of Manhattan. First, as you can see below, we got off the subway at the underground entrance into the American Museum of Natural History. This is such a quick and easy way to enter.
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| Subway entrance |
Even though when we came back on this fourth day of my great adventure, we started out in the South African animal section, I think we will start in the reptile section (get that over with !!) and then head to the African animals.
I will only show you a few of what we saw -- some of what I would declare to be the most interesting ones.
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| Alligator |
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| Tortoise |
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| Giant Salamander |
The Alligator -- Frightening? Heck yes! Even though it is dead and/or stuffed, I am glad it was in a glass case because with those jaws open, it is still very, very intimidating no matter what!
The Giant Tortoise: Often reaching enormous size—they can weigh as much as 660 lbs. and can grow to be 4 feet long. Giant tortoises are among the world's longest-living animals, with an average lifespan of 100 years or more. A zoo Australia is reported to have a giant tortoise that passed away in 2006 at the ripe old age of 176 years. But, not to be outdone, amazingly, a long-lived Aldabra giant tortoise named Adwaita died at Alipore Zoological Gardens in Kolkata, West Bengal, also in the year 2006. Brought to the zoo in the 1870's, it was thought to have been around 255 years old when he died. Because these tortoises were caught and killed for food
in such large quantities, they became virtually extinct by 1900.
Giant tortoises are now under strict conservation laws and are
categorized as threatened species.
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| Komodo Dragon |
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| Feeding time for the dragons |
The Giant Salamander: Not the prettiest looking creature, giant salamanders are large aquatic amphibians who can be found in brooks and ponds in China, Japan and even eastern United States.
They have been known to reach a size as great as 6 - 1/2 feet in length.
Not getting into the age record books as much as the giant tortoise, Chinese Giant Salamanders have lived as long as a respectable 75 years in captivity.
Komodo Dragon: As long as we are on the subject of ugly, here is another unattractive creature -- the Komodo dragon. A large species of lizard, Komodo dragons are found in the Indonesian islands. Although captive specimens often weigh more, an adult Komodo dragon from the wild usually weighs around 150 lbs. With a tail as long as its body, the largest known Komodo measured over 10 feet in length and weighed in at a whooping 370 lbs.
The feeding habits of Komodos are peculiar, to say the least. Largely a carnivorous animal, it is shown at left feeding on a wild boar. Carrion [carcass of dead animals] are the main diet of the Komodo, but since they tend to be the largest animal in the area, they feed on mostly anything. They are said to be able to smell a dead or dying animal from as far away as 2.5 miles. With their loosely pivotal jaws, flexible skull, and expandable stomach, they are known to swallow whole its smaller prey, up to the size of a goat; but swallowing can still be a long process – 15 to 20 minutes to swallow a goat. A Komodo dragon may attempt to expedite the process by slamming the carcass against a tree to force it down its throat, sometimes ramming so forcefully that the tree is knocked down. While swallowing larger prey, to prevent suffocating while swallowing, it breathes using a small tube under the tongue that connects to the lungs. After sometimes eating up to 80 percent of its body weight in one meal, it will drag itself to a sunny location to speed digestion, since the food could rot and poison the dragon if left undigested for too long. Because of their slow metabolism, large dragons can survive on as little as 12 meals a year.
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| Leatherback Sea Turtle |
Leatherback Sea Turtle: Leatherbacks are the largest of all living sea
turtles. With a large pair of front flippers that power the turtles
through the water (which are absent claws, by the way), their flattened fore limbs are
adapted for swimming in the open ocean. The front flippers can grow up
to less than nine feet in length. Adult leatherbacks average 3-1/2 to 6
feet in carapace (shell) length, and 6 to over 7 feet in total length and
can weigh 550 to 1,500 lbs. The largest ever found was on a beach on
the west coast of Wales and measured just about 10 feet from head to tail,
including a carapace length of over 7 feet, and weighed 2,020 lbs.
(Yep, just a little guy!!!)
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| Surinam Toad |
Surinam Toad: Yes, I know -- he had you at ... hello!! Eeeks! I am sure you will see this in your dreams tonight. [Onward ... just try not to think about it or look at it again -- hard, isn't it! And it didn't help that I made this picture extra large -- I'm bad!]
Let's find out what these bad boys are all about! The Surinam Toad's natural habitats are subtropical /tropical moist lowland forests, subtropical / tropical swamps, swamps, and freshwater marshes so we won't find them in our back yards. Yea, yea, yea, that is all fine and interesting but what I mostly wanted to bring to your attention about this unique species is its remarkable and, may I say, quirky reproductive habits. To attract the female, the male toads produce a sharp clicking sound by snapping a bone in their throat. Together the partners rise from the aquatic floor while in amplexus and flip through the water in arcs. [Amplexus is a form of acrobatic copulation wherein a male amphibian grasps a female with his front legs as part of the mating process and at the same time or with some time delay, he fertilizes the female eggs with fluid containing sperm.] Anyway, back to this dance ... during each arc, the female releases 3-10 eggs, which get embedded in the skin on her back by the male's movements. After implantation the eggs roll over the mother's back and sink into the skin and form pockets over a period of several days, eventually taking on a honeycomb-like appearance (which you see here in the picture above). The larvae develop through to the tadpole stage inside these pockets, eventually emerging from the mother's back as fully developed toads, though they are less than an inch long. Kind of neat, huh?
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| Skink |
Skink: And, if that wasn't bad enough to rattle your dreams, next up we have the skink. With about 1200 different species, the skink is one of the most diverse branch of the lizard family (gecko being the most diversified). From Australia, this skink at right (Tiliqua rugosa) is a ground-foraging omnivore, feeding on a wide variety of insects, flowers, fruits and berries. It can store fat in its tail which, during dry periods when food is scarce, it will depend upon.
Okay, as many may know, I am not very fond of creepy, crawly things nor am I welcome to entertaining the thought of even peeking at a slithering reptile. But, feeling a little safe in the confines of the Museum and comforted by the fact that these are dead, stuffed exhibits, I felt somewhat superior in my depth of courage to be able to view, let alone take a picture of this next subject.
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| Reticulated Python |
The reticulated python (referring to its color) is a species of python found in Southeast Asia. Adults can grow to 23 feet in length but normally average only (!!only??) 10–20 feet. They are the world's longest snakes and longest reptile, and like all pythons, are non-venomous constrictors who are normally not considered dangerous to humans. But beware, in case you plan to be in Southeast Asia and go out in search of a playful snake, they are powerful enough to kill an adult human. Although attacks are only occasionally reported, this species is among the few snakes that have been fairly reliably reported to eat people, although only a few cases where the snake actually ate (rather than just killed) a human appear to be authenticated.
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| Courting Snakes |
Snakes, of most any species, just like humans, have their unique and intricate ideas of courting. As witnessed at right, these snakes form a dance, if you may, that brings thoughts to mind of music playing in the background that make the rumba courtship begin.
Now just, when I gave you some soothing thoughts of snakes, here I have proved once more that I am as nasty as a snake since I may aid in evoking horrible, nightmarish dreams.
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| The Inside of a Pregnant Snake |
This picture (at left), lucky for you, is not one of the worst pictures I took, but I thought I would share it. It is a cut-open section of a snake "with children." Yes, those are tiny little snakes inside that momma snake -- all just waiting to crawl out. Now, the thoughts of all this little snakes slithering out of momma and wriggling about . . . sends shivers up my spine -- ghoulish, simply ghoulish!
I am stopping there for today. In my next post, we will jump right into the African Animal exhibits. After that, we will be off to the the fourth-floor halls which include the Hall of Vertebrate Origins, Hall of Saurischian Dinosaurs, Hall of Ornithischian Dinosaurs, Hall of Primitive Mammals, and Hall of Advanced Mammals.
But, for now, let's part with your last sights being that of the inside of the pregnant snake up above. Haha!
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