Last Thursday, my cub scout pack had a blue and gold banquet. There was a male-only cake decorating contest; females could not help decorate the cakes. My dad and I decided to make a blue and gold macaw cake (also called blue and yellow macaw) because it was the blue and gold banquet. It was chocolate cake that we covered with white frosting. We drew the outline of the bird in black frosting, and we used different colored sprinkles for the color. It was very yummy.
This is an Egyptian sand boa. It is also called Kenyan sand boa or East African sand boa. They live in northeast Africa. It is a snake with a small head, small eyes, and a small tail. It likes to live in sandy ground, and it eats small mammals that it kills by constricting.
I saw it this morning at the Pet Expo in Green Bay. We saw lots of different pet animals there, especially lots of dogs.
This is a very special red-footed tortoise. Notice anything strange about it? It has a wheel instead of one of its feet. This tortoise lives in Uberaba, Brazil. About a month ago, it cut its foot on an electric fence that fell down, and the veterinarian, Cláudio Yudi, had to amputate its foot. Tortoises have a hard time getting around with just three legs, so the veterinarian decided to try gluing a furniture wheel to the bottom of its shell. The tortoise is now healthy and getting around well.
I don’t know the tortoise’s name, but I like to call him Tortoise Wheel.
The picture above was taken by Cláudio Yudi, the veterinarian who gave him the wheel. We learned about it here on globo.com. (Click here if you don’t know Portuguese.)
I’ve got spring break next week, so look for lots of new animal posts coming up soon!
This is a wood stork. Its scientific name is Mycteria americana. It used to be called wood ibis, because it has a curved beak like an ibis. But it is not really an ibis. Its head looks like it is made out of a block of wood. It is the only stork in North America, and it lives in Florida and Mexico in swamps, marshes, and ponds. In the summer, you can find it further north. It also lives in Central and South America and the Caribbean. It eats fish, frogs, reptiles, and large insects. Adult storks don’t usually get eaten by anything, but once in a while an American alligator gets one. Corvids, vultures, grackles, striped skunks, and raccoons take the stork eggs out of the nests and eat them, so the adults have to guard their nests very carefully.
I saw this wood stork at SeaWorld‘s Pacific Point Preserve. In the picture behind the stork you can see seals or sea lions. I’m not sure which ones these are.
These are lined seahorses. They are also called northern seahorses. I saw them at SeaWorld‘s Manta Aquarium. Seahorses are fun to watch. They change color to blend in with their surroundings, and they like to hang on to plants with their tails. I think the plants in this picture are Eelgrass. Seahorses eat small crustaceans. They are not strong swimmers, so they hold on to a plant, blend in, and wait for food to come by. They live in the western Atlantic Ocean.
Seahorses give birth in a very special way. With most animals, the babies are born from the female. But with seahorses, the male has a brood pouch that the babies are born from. The male gives birth to hundreds of tiny seahorses at a time.
The one on the left is an alligator gar. It is sometimes called a gator gar. It is a big fish that looks a little like an alligator. It has a long snout and big teeth just like an alligator. I like its scientific name, Atractosteus spatula, because its nose is flat like a spatula. It has diamond-shaped scales that some people like to use for jewelry. It is found in southern states, like Texas, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, Arkansas, Missouri, Florida, and Georgia, as well as in Mexico. Sometimes in the South you might find alligator gar on the menu in a restaurant. The alligator gar is a carnivore that eats other fish.
I saw these fish at SeaWorld. I’m not sure what the other big fish in the picture is, but I think it is a longnose gar. If you think you know what it is, please let me know in the comments.
This is an American alligator. It is also called a gator, and its scientific name is Alligator mississippiensis. They are found in Florida and all the rest of the Gulf coast states. When Spanish explorers first came to Florida, they called this animal “The lizard.” In Spanish, this is “el lagarto,” and this turned into the word alligator as time passed.
The one in the picture above lives at Gatorland in Orlando, Florida. I saw this alligator when I was 2 years old. A few weeks ago, I saw more alligators at SeaWorld. The picture below is of baby alligators. I think baby alligators are cute. What do you think?
Large adult American alligators weigh about 800 pounds and are about 13 feet long. They eat fish, birds, turtles, snakes, mammals, and amphibians. They have very powerful jaws. Most alligators have stones in their stomach. Alligators swallow their food whole, because they can bite, but not chew their food. So the stones grind up their food while it is in their stomachs. The stones also help the alligator sink in the water while it is swimming.
These are brown pelicans. They live on both coasts of America, from Washington State and Virginia all the way south to northern South America. We saw these pelicans at the Turtle Point exhibit in SeaWorld.
Brown pelicans are the smallest of all the pelicans, but they are still big birds. They weigh 6-12 pounds and have a wingspan of 6-8 feet. Brown pelicans dive from the air into the water to catch fish, amphibians, and crustaceans. They have a big throat pouch under their bill to hold fish.
This is a scarlet cleaner shrimp. They are also called northern cleaner shrimp, skunk cleaner shrimp, and Pacific cleaner shrimp. They are called skunk cleaner shrimp because they have a stripe on their back like a skunk.
Scarlet cleaner shrimp clean fish and coral by eating parasites and dead tissue off of the other animals. On a reef in the wild, these shrimp live in groups that act like cleaning stations. When fish have parasites, they will go to these cleaning stations and the shrimp will clean off the fish. The shrimp will even go inside the fish’s mouth and gill cavity, and the fish won’t eat the shrimp because it knows that the shrimp is helping it.
People with saltwater aquariums also like to get these shrimp because the shrimp will clean off the fish and the tank.
This one was in an aquarium at SeaWorld in the Manta Aquarium exhibit.
This is a bar-headed goose. It lives in Asia. It is sometimes seen in other parts of the world, though, because they have been brought into zoos and animal parks and sometimes they escape. I saw it at SeaWorld near the Turtle Point exhibit. They were in a cage with Caribbean flamingos.
The bar-headed goose is one of the highest flying birds in the world, because it migrates over the Himalayas, which are the world’s tallest mountains. They sometimes fly right over Mount Everest, which is the tallest mountain in the world. They live in the summer in Tibet and in the winter they migrate to India. The trip is 1000 miles, and they can sometimes fly the whole trip in one day. They are very fast fliers, and they wait for strong mountain tailwinds to help push them along.
Here is our first game on Raymie’s Zoo! It is a look-and-find.
Find 2 bar-headed geese in the picture above. Then find 3 Caribbean flamingos.
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