Amphibiville (Detroit Zoo) virtual tour

For those of us who won't be going to Detroit any time soon....

http://www.detroitzoo.org/zoo/begin/begin.htm

Another part of the site links to the Caudata Culture article about newt toxins (click on "More Info"):

http://www.detroitvirtualtours.com/portfolios/zoo/zoo.htm

I wish Detroit was in Belgium

Detroit Zoo rocks. I make it a habit to go there as often as possible. The virtual tour does NOT do it justice, whatsoever. Go, oogle the giant sals.

I've been to Amphibiville a few times. It's a neat place. Too bad it isn't connected to my house.

(Message edited by xamphibiax on December 08, 2004)

That is awesome, loved the site! Hope I can go there someday.

sigh! if only the san diego zoo had a section like this!

Very impressive place! My question is how they mix different species of frogs and salamanders yet here, you're told not to. They just showed one display that had frogs, salamanders and reptiles all in one contained ecosystem area.

They were probably talkinga bout the massive outdoor pond, when talking about mixing
Retiles and Amphibians together. It's capable of holding thousands of them. They do sometimes mix species of Amphibians, with other Amphibians, in the indoor enclosures. Any Reptiles held indoors would be in the REptile House. I'm not inclined to say if the mixing of species they did indoors is good for the animals or not, but maybe someone else would know. Though, there aren't many people from MI at caudata.org to ask.

...I'd say most of them are with their own kind, and when you see something that says cave exhibit, and shows pictures of 5 species, they aren't explaining how there are probably 5 enclosures.

(Message edited by xamphibiax on December 19, 2004)

Mixing is possible if you pay a lot of attention to what you are doing and are able to monitor the animals well. In addition, Zoos try to work within a Zoogeographically correct theme. This means that the animals that are placed together tend to be from the same region (there are exceptions for various reasons at some Zoos).
For example at work I have/have had several mixed exhibits for a number of years such as Bombina/Cynops cyanureus/panchax exhibit. This works because the cyanureus are large enough that the bombina cannot hurt them and vice versa however the type of thought required for this set up is not what the typical person posting on here asks. The person asking typically wants to put together animals from disparate regions of the world with little thought to pathogens, parasites, thermal/habitat requirements, feeding requirements, aggressiveness and/or predation.
All of these factors need to be considered before the animals are placed together in the first place.

Ed

I've never been a huge fan of species mixing however I have done it on occasion, mostly with anoles and dart frogs. I currently have a 65 gal heavily planted/landscaped vivaria that has 1.1 Anolis bahorucensis and a couple of D. tinctorius. Since the anoles are a small species that often eat the same prey items as the frogs the mix has worked well (about 4 years so far). Again, species mixing is usually not a husbandry technique that I practice.
Chip

From Ed, "Zoos try to work within a Zoogeographically correct theme." Yeah, there is a section for Native Species of Michigan, and they mix those Amphibians. They also mix Hellbenders with Chinese Giant Salamanders, and they keep their distance from each other, but I'm pretty sure everything as been though out well enough.

(Message edited by xamphibiax on December 20, 2004)

I doubt that the hellbenders are physically in with the Andrias. If I remember correctly the aquariums are side by side with seperate filtration systems. But just to make sure I'll e-mail them directly when I get back to work and see what they have to say (I believe Bill is the acting curator now that Kevin Zippel has left).

Ed

Maybe there is a divider between them, but it is one tank. If there is a divider, then it's not easy to see.

I spoke to Bill today and the animals are in totally seperate enclosures with totally seperate filtration/cooling systems. The divider is hidden by a fake tree and some rockwork.

Ed

Thanks guys! I personally don't see how mixing my eastern newts with the cinereus would harm anything considering that's where I found both of them together in the same area. I haven't done that. I agree with NOT mixing species from different parts of the world.