ZooMontana Written Tour - Living Wall

The Living Wall houses a variety of animals (we’ve featured a few here):

The Great Plains toad is found in dry grasslands and spends a great deal of its time sleeping underground. When it does wake up, it can travel great distances to find temporary breeding ponds and to search for tasty bugs to eat. Only the male toad “sings”. The skin on amphibians is permeable; it allows the animal to breath and drink through their skin! Because of this special skin, any chemicals in the air, water or soil can be directly absorbed into the animal, making them sick and/or killing them. Toads protect themselves with poison. Toxins are secreted from large glands (the “warts”) on the toad’s skin, their only defense against hungry predators. Picking up toads is harmful to the toad, any natural oils, lotion, bug spray, sunscreen or perfumes on your hands is absorbed into the animal. Toads won’t give you warts but you will have to wash your hands thoroughly to remove the toxins from your skin.

The Wyoming Toads were once thought to be extinct. They were rediscovered and are only known to exist around Mortenson Lake near Laramie, WY. How many of these toads can you spot in their exhibit? They are a wonderful example of camouflage.

Snakes, Snakes and more Snakes! The western wall in the living wall area is home to several Montana snakes, the Western Hog Nose, the beautifully colored Pale Milk Snake, Garter Snakes and Bullsnake. Note the variety of size, shape and color in these native snakes. The hognose is a mildly venomous snake that feeds almost exclusively on toads; in fact, sometimes ZooMontana keepers have to rub its food on the Woodhouse’s toad to get it to eat. Bullsnakes are often mistaken for rattlesnakes, but these snakes are non venomous, and are very important for rodent control. The bullsnake is Montana’s largest snake whose length can exceed 7 feet!

Montana’s only boa species, the Rubber Boa, is native to the western part of the state. Secretive and docile this is a hard snake to find. They’re handy to have around though as they prey mostly on very young mice.

Wow! That’s a big insect! Check out our Madagascar “Hissing” cockroaches! There are several thousand species of cockroaches known throughout the world, but you won’t find these living in your kitchen. They are native to the island of Madagascar off the coast of Africa. They live outside on the forest floor and eat all the debris that falls to the ground, like leaves, fruit and nuts. They don’t have wings to escape hungry predators instead they puff themselves up to look bigger, hang on real tight with their little clawed feet and hiss real loud. It’s hard to sneak up on a cockroach; they can feel you, hear you and see you. Cockroaches are living fossils; they have been around since before the dinosaurs. They will probably still be here after we are long gone.

Do you find eight legs four too many? The Peruvian pinktoe tarantula is a large, hairy tree-dwelling spider found in the rainforests of the northwest Amazon region. This species is from northeastern Peru. It builds a silken tube-web, which it lives in when it isn’t out hunting for food. When it catches its prey, insects and other small animals, it injects its victim with poison from two fangs. The poison starts digesting the animal and the spider feeds by sucking the out liquid. Spiders of all kinds are generally feared by many and often killed when seen. Collection of these large spiders from the wild for the exotic pet trade has become a big market. Spiders, however, are not “pets” and don’t need or appreciate companionship or being handled. It takes years for these tarantulas to mature and reproduce and many young ones fall prey to larger predators. Removing them from the wild may have already impacted the species.

Meet our three-toed box turtles! There are different subspecies of box turtles found throughout the United States and all prefer environments that can be characterized as “moist” or “humid”, such as woodlands, coastal flood plains, pastures and wet meadows. Box turtles have a high domed shell (carapace). The hard plate underneath (plastron) is hinged at the front and the back. This enables the turtle to enclose itself completely with its shell when it feels threatened, hence the name “box”. Box turtles eat a variety of invertebrates, fruit, mushrooms and leafy greens. For many years now these gentle reptiles have been collected from the wild to sell in the pet trade. These animals, which can live 40 to 100 years in the wild, rarely survive their first year in captivity. Currently, all North American box turtles are listed on CITES as endangered animals. Any turtle sold in a pet shop without specific documentation to the contrary, have been caught in the wild and therefore illegal to sell or own.

Continue on to the Discovery Center animals!