Published by

Friends of the National Zoo

National Zoological Park

Washington, D.C. 20009

Phones:

Executive Director and membership:

232-4500

Educational and Editorial offices:

232-5500

Guided tours: 332-9322

Window Shop: 232-4555

FONZ Board of Directors 1972-73

Peter C. Andrews — President

Arthur W. Arundel — Vice President

Emanuel Boasberg — Treasurer

Susan K. Semple — Secretary

Theodore Babbitt

Montgomery S. Bradley

John S. Brown

Mary H. L. Clark

Timothy V.A. Dillon

Donna K. Grosvenor

Stephen Hosmer

Joan L. Jewett

Robert Mason

Isabel J}. McDonnell

Shirley J. McNair

Lavelle Merritt

Ruth N. Nelson

John B. Oliver

Mary Poole

Nancy Porter

Gerald G. Wagner

Rosa M. Walker

Richardson White, Jr.

Executive Director

Warren J. Iliff

Editor: Austin Hughes

Design and Production by Tom Jones

Photographs on pages 3,9,10, and 16

by Kathy Rasenberger. Cover photograph

and all other photographs by Tom Jones.

THE ZOOGOER is published bi-monthly

and copyrighted © by Friends of the National

Zoo, c/o National Zoological Park, Washington,

D.C. 20009. second-class mailing permit

approved at Washington, D.C. Rate

in the United States $3 a year. Vol. 1, No. 4.

CONTENTS

Baby Tapir

Zoo News — Mammals

Zoo Map

Zoo News — Birds

Zoo News — Reptiles and Amphibians

Tortoises

10 © COE

THE ZOOGOER is a new bi-monthly publication

of the Friends of the National Zoo and replaces

the quarterly publication, Spots and Stripes. With

THE ZOOGOER, the Friends hopes to provide

for its membership an up-to-date report on new

animals and exhibits at the National Zoological

Park and in-depth articles on the natural history

and behavior of animals at the Zoo. All of the text

and photographs will be keyed to the centerfold

map in hopes of making a trip to the Zoo a more

interesting, educational, and enjoyable adventure.

THE ZOOGOER will also be on sale at the Friends’

Window Shop and kiosk as a current guide to

points of interest at the Zoo.

ones at the phones: Educational! and

National Executive Director Editorial Offices/232-5500

Zoological Park and Membership/232-4500 Guided Tours/332-9322

National Washington, D.C. 20009 Train Tours/667-2094 Window Shop/232-4555

FALL FILM FESTIVAL

3 Free to Members Only

One dollar donation for each guest at each showing

Saturday, Nov. 4 - 10:00 a.m. - Serengeti Shall Not Die - a feature

length, color film by Professor Bernard Grzimek, Director of the

Frankfurt (Germany) Zoo and author of the thirteen volume Animal

Life Encyclopedia. Dr. Grzimek, who was our guest at this year's

past Zoo Night, has dedicated his life to the goal of preserving

Africa's wildlife heritage and this film beautifully tells their

story.

Saturday, Nov. 11 - 10:00 a.m. - Two films on animal behavior.

Baobab; Portrait of a Tree by Alan and Joan Root, shown once on

national television and depicting the fascinating lifestyles of wild

animals as they are played out, in and around this characteristic

tree of the East African savannah. One sequence on the nesting

behavior of hornbills took over three years to film. This is a

brilliant natural history documentary. Signals for Survival

by Dr. Niko Tinbergen who, along with Konrad Lorenz, is internationally

recognized as a father of the study of animal behavior. A great

part of Dr. Tinbergen's work has been with herring gulls and this

film documents his many discoveries about their communications and

social relationships.

Saturday, Nov. 18 - 10:00 a.m. - Two films on wildlife conservation -

Say Goodbye by David Wolper is a thought-provoking film depicting man's

past cruelty and destruction of animal life and calls upon each of us

to lend our voices in support of wildlife survival.

Atonement by the National Film Board of Canada is a more positive

Took at U. S. and Canadian efforts to save our native animals. It

documents such activities as innoculation of Big Horn Sheep, tagging

of Polar Bears and the joint efforts to preserve the last remaining

flock of Whooping Cranes.

Uptown Theater, 3426 Connecticut Avenue, N. W. (parking in Zoo lots -

2 blocks south of theater).

ATTENTION:

Information on next page about "Special" Meeting of the Corporation

and a listing of proposed By-Law Amendments - please read.

Blips at the phones: Educational and

fe)

National Executive Director Editorial Offices/232-550

the Zoological Park and Membership/232-4500 Guided Tours/332-9322

National Washington, D.C. 20009 Train Tours/667-2094 Window Shop/232-4555

SPECIAL ANNUAL MEETING

7:30 p.m., Tuesday, November 21, 1972, at the Zoo's Elephant House

(Entry at Connecticut Ave. and parking in upper lots)

Business Meeting

1. President's Report

2. By-Law Amendments (see below)

Guest Speaker - Dr. Theodore H. Reed on "The New Zoo" - a slide

presentation on the revised Master Plan for the National

Zoological Park. First public showing of the scale model

of the "new" zoo that we all hope will be built soon.

BY-LAW AMENDMENTS

Article II (Board of Directors) - Section 3 - add “Each such proposed

Board member shall be known to at least two members of the Board

in addition to the Chairman of the Nominating Committee."

Section 4 - delete and becomes former Section 5.

Section 5 was Section 1. of Article v and now reads, "The Board of

Directors shall meet a minimum of four times each year, at a

time and place prescribed by the Board from time to time. In

addition to these meetings, special meetings may be called by

the President. Written notice of all meetings shall be sent

to the Directors at least 10 days in advance."

Section 6 was Section 2 of Article V and now reads, "At any such

regular or special meetings, eight members of the Board in good

standing shall constitute a quorum for the transaction of business. '

Article III (Officers) - Section 1 - at the end of the second sentence,

add "of the Corporation."

old Section 2 - becomes Section 3 |

new Section 2 - reads, "The officers shall be eligible to succeed

themselves, except that the President shall serve for no more

than two consecutive terms, after which he shall be ineligible

for re-election for two years from the end of his term."

Article IV (Committees) - major revision, now reads:

Sec. 1. The Standing Committees of the Corporation shall be as

follows: (1) Executive Committee, (2) Finance Committee,

(3) Education Committee and (4) Nominating Committee.

2B CONTINUED ON PAGE 22A

In the late afternoon or evening of August

22nd or in the early morning of August 23rd,

a male Brazilian tapir was born in the National

Zoo’s spacious outdoor tapir yard (number

26e on map). The pair of adult tapirs in this

enclosure have produced offspring before;

but they have all been born in cold weather,

and the mother has been unable to raise

them herself. (One, a male born on March

17, 1971, was successfully hand-reared and ts

now on exhibit with a young female ina

yard in back of the Lion House, number 22e

on map). Now National Zoo visitors can see

a mother of this fascinating species raising

her young for the first time since the mother

of the current young was born and raised

here herself in 1965.

The National Zoo’s new baby tapir with its father (number 26e on map).

Like all baby tapirs, this male has soft brown

fur with horizontal bands and spots of a

much lighter brown. He looks, as one

zoologist said of tapir young, “‘like a banded

watermelon with legs.’”’ These unique mark-

ings may have the function of camouflaging

the helpless young. Certainly, Zoo visitors

can see a remarkable illustration of the value

of irregular markings for camouflaging an

animal in an area of mixed light and shadow

when the Zoo’s young tapir is walking or

resting in the short vegetation at the rear of

the tapirs’ enclosure. Then, even if he is

right next to his parent, the infant is easily

overlooked. Gradually, during the first year

of the young tapir’s life, this first coat will

be replaced by short black fur like that of

his parents.

‘Becoming more active and venturesome

every day, the young tapir can sometimes be

‘seen galloping around the enclosure or even

swimming in the tapirs’ large pond, which

they share with goldfish, numerous turtles,

and a seldom-seen beaver. The baby tapir’s

development is, in fact, remarkably rapid,

and it eats its first solid food at the age of

only two weeks. Although this particular

birth was not.observed, it is known that

newborn tapirs are usually able to stand

within a few minutes after birth. Bornina

matter of only three to six minutes, the

young tapir at first lies motionless on the

ground. Then the mother begins to nibble at

it and lick it with her long, pink tongue.

This rouses the newborn to action. It shakes

its head, wiggles its large, rounded ears, and

finally struggles to its feed.

Immediately it begins to search for the udder.

Interestingly, while it sucks instinctively and

seems to have an innate tendency to circle

around towards the mother’s rear, it seems

to have no innate knowledge of the exact

location of the udder. Nor does it seem able

to find the udder by means of its sense of

smell alone. Thus the infant at first tries to

suckle at the mother’s head and front legs;

then as its tendency to circle around the

mother begins to express itself, the mother

reinforces it strongly by pushing her off-

spring towards the rear with her head. When

the young gets close to the two nipples,

which are located in the groin region, the

mother rolls on her side. This is the ordinary

position in which the tapir mother nurses

her young, lying on her side in a manner

reminiscent of a nursing domestic sow.

Actually tapirs are not at all closely related

to pigs, although there is a slight superficial

resemblance in body form. Rather they

belong to the order Perissodactyla or odd-

toed hoofed mammals. Other living families

in this ancient order besides the tapir family

are the rhinoceros family and the horse

family. All of these mammals have an en-

larged third toe which extends up to the

main leg bone on each of the four feet and

bears all or most of the body’s weight. In.

horses this third digit is the only one that is

functional, while in rhinos the three middle

digits are functional. Tapirs are more primi-

tive in many ways than these other two |

families; in other words, in their evolution,

they have departed less in form from the

original common ancestors of all three

families. One sign of this primitiveness is

that tapirs have four toes on the front feet

and three on the hind feet. This fourth toe

— actually descended from the fifth toe of -

the original five mammalian digits — is

unique among living members of the order

and is functional only on soft ground. Soft,

damp regions, however, are the preferred

habitat of all tapirs in the wild.

The tapirs are a very ancient family that

_ originated in the early Oligocene epoch some

35 million years ago. About 25 million years

ago, early members of the tapir family in-

habited Europe, North America, and Asia.

Today only four species of tapir survive, one

in Asia and three in tropical and subtropical

America. The fact that members of this

family exist in such isolation from each other

is good evidence that there once was a land

bridge between Asia and North America.

The Zoo’s tapirs belong to the most numerous

of the American species, the Brazilian or low-

land tapir (Tapirus terrestris). From Colum-

bia and Venezuela south through most of

tropical Brazil, these tapirs inhabit forests

and thickets during the daytime and feed at

night in open areas and in or along the banks

of lakes and streams. They are excellent

swimmers like all tapirs and readily take to

the water to flee native hunters or their one

natural predator, the jaguar.

Lowland tapirs feed mainly on grasses, the

leaves and twigs of shrubs and trees, and

fruits. The tapir’s snout and upper lip form

a small trunk, which it uses to pick fruits and

leaves. While nowhere near as dextrous or

all-purpose an implement as an elephant’s

trunk, this proboscis is nonetheless a remark-

able organ, as the Zoo’s tapirs demonstrate

when they use their trunks to pick up the

apples and pieces of kale and sweet potato on

which they are fed. Interestingly, one zoolo-

gist who has studied the American tapirs be-

lieves that they are strictly speaking omnivorous

in the wild. He states that they not only eat

vegetable food but consume animal matter in

the form of small underwater organisms. This

varied diet would make them virtually unique

among the hoofed mammals.

The nostrils are located in the tip of the tapir’s

trunk. Its sense of smell is relatively good and

compensates for its poor eyesight. Tapirs

often walk holding the trunk close to the

ground and moving it around occasionally,

evidently to pick up scents from all direc-

tions. The tapir uses its trunk to investigate

unfamiliar surroundings not only by smell but

also by touch. The tip of the trunk is covered

with sensitive hair-like bristles which the tapir

uses to investigate the surfaces of strange

objects. : |

Some authors have stated that tapirs are able

to walk on the bottoms of rivers or shallow

lakes. Certainly they can stay under water

for relatively long periods. The National

Zoo’s tapirs sometimes disappear entirely

under the surface of their pool for minutes

at atime. The tapir’s aquatic tendencies are

amply demonstrated by the young, and the

Zoo’s latest is no exception in this regard.

The first day after his birth he could be >

seen sitting in the sunlight in the shallow

water at the edge of the tapirs’ pool while

both of his parents swam in the pool. Only

six days later he was seen swimming itself

for the first time.

The young tapir had habituated himself to

water gradually. On the fourth day of his

life he followed his mother to the water,

waded in, defecated, and got out. Tapirs

regularly defecate only in water if water is

available, and this may well have been the

first time the young tapir ever defecated.

In subsequent days he returned to the water

to defecate and, later, to practice swimming. |

At the age of two weeks, although he never

entered the pool without his mother, he

was able to dive and to swim the length of

the pool and stayed in the water up to 10

minutes at a time.

At first the young tapir spent the greater part

of the day sleeping, often in a hiding place in

the weeds at the rear of the enclosure where

he was left by his mother. At this writing

he still seems generally to stay where his

mother leaves him except when, by a

“whistling” call or by approaching him she

indicates that she wants him to follow her.

He may make a similar whistling sound,

which sometimes apparently serves to remind

his mother of his location and at other times

serves to call her to him.. But his times of

activity are becoming more and more fre-

quent and longer lasting. He ate his first solid

food — one whole apple — on September 4;

and, if all goes well he will continue to grow

rapidly, increasing his weight after only six

months to as much as eight times the 20 or 25

pounds he weighed at birth.

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Arusha, the Zoo’s female hippopotamus, with her latest offspring at the Elephant House (number 117 on map).

Hippopotamus Calf Born

A female hippopotamus was born at the

Elephant House (number 17 on map) on

August 1st and was promptly named ‘‘Augus-

ta.’”’ This is the twelfth offspring born to the

mother, ‘‘Arusha,”’ and the father, “Joe

Smith,” since 1959. Arusha arrived at the

National Zoo in 1955 when she was about

three years old; the male had arrived a year

earlier at the age of about six months.

Like most hippopotamus young born here,

this one was born in the mud of the hippos’

outdoor yard. In zoos, young of this species,

the Nile or common hippopotamus (Hippo-

potamus amphibius), are usually born in

shallow water, about a foot or a foot-and-

a-half deep. Calves of their much smaller

relative, the pygmy hippopotamus, on the

other hand, are usually born on dry land in

zoos. So in this respect, the zoo’s female

seems to be different from most other cap-

tive Nile hippo mothers. She has given birth in

water only once, and then the birth overtook

her and her keepers by surprise when she was

locked in the hippos’ indoor pool. The water

was about three feet deep, and the calf was

dropped directly into it. In the wild, how-

ever, observations have shown that birth may

occur on dry land as well; so Arusha seems

not to be so exceptional a hippo as the data

from captivity might lead one to believe.

In any event, Arusha, as is her custom, led the

newborn calf to the water directly after birth.

At first she kept the calf in the shallow water

around the steps of the hippos’ outdoor pool,

evidently as a safety measure. The calf, unlike

that of the pygmy hippopotamus, always

nurses underwater, the mother lying on her

side in the shallow water. The calf is able to

suckle underwater without swallowing water

along with its mother’s milk. Evidently the

mother hippo, unlike such still more aquatic

mammals as whales and porpoises, whose young

also nurse under water, has no mechanism that

enables her to squirt milk. The hippo calf man-

ages to suck under water by closing its nos-

trils tightly when it is submerged and surfac-

ing occasionally to take a deep breath.

Often when a hippopotamus is born in a zoo,

the father is removed from the same enclo-

sure as the mother and young. This is done

for the safety of the father as much as for the

safety of the infant, since the mother is often

extraordinarily defensive of her calf. The

male may not come near the calf and will be

attacked if he attempts to approach too

closely. The Zoo’s female is no exception as

regards defensiveness. But the male knows

his distance when she has a calf; so the pair

seldom quarrel and need not be separated.

Weighing at least 6,000 pounds and possibly

as much as 8,000 pounds, Arusha is believed

to outweigh Joe Smith by as much as a ton.

Hippopotamus calves weigh between 80 and

100 pounds at birth. By the time she is a year

old, the new calf will weigh 250 pounds or

more. Around that time she will probably be

sent to anew home in some other zoo to

make room for future calves here and to con-

tinue the tradition established by Joe Smith

and Arusha’s previous offspring, which are

thriving in zoos from Portland, Oregon, to

Santiago, Chile.

BE zs

Giraffe Born

The new giraffe at the age of about one week

(number 171 on map).

Also at the Elephant House (number 77 on

map), a female giraffe (Giraffa camelopar-

dalis) was born on August 27. The mother,

““Myrt,” has given birth three times previously.

One of her young, “‘Cecilia,” born in 1966, is

still in the National Zoo’s collection and is

now full grown. At this writing, the young

giraffe, which has been named ‘‘Alene,”’

seems to be doing quite well. Mother and

offspring form an affectionate pair, the young

giraffe often licking the mother’s neck as she

bends down to lick its neck or back.

The birth of a giraffe will always excite human

curiosity and wonder. The newborn infant is

usually at least five-and-a-half feet tall and

sometimes over six feet tall; the weight of the

baby is usually between 100 and 150 pounds.

The forelegs emerge first, one by one; the

hoofs are soft and swollen so that they cannot

harm the mother. Then the head is thrust

out with the transparent amniotic membrane

still partly wrapped around it, and the long

neck slowly emerges. After that, the mother

squats partially and drops the calf on the

ground or, in the zoo, on the straw-covered

cage floor. Only then, as it lies on the ground,

does the calf begin to breathe. The mother

lowers her head to lick its head, neck, and

body.

Now comes one of the most critical points in

the giraffe’s young life. It must be able to

stand on its feet soon after birth. In the

wild it must be able to move with the herd,

which forms a protective circle around the

mother at birth. Moreover, the calf must be

able to stand in order to reach the udder and

feed. Only after the young giraffe manages to

stand on its long, wobbly legs and locate the

udder does the mother seem to accept it

definitely.

The early nursing period is also critical. In

the case of the Zoo’s latest giraffe infant,

Friends of the National Zoo volunteers kept

watch after keepers had left in the evenings

for about the first week of her life to make

sure she was nursing. At this writing, the

infant is nursing well and is becoming more

active and steadier and more graceful in her

movements every day.

Patagonian Cavies

The rabbit-like Patagonian cavies (number 9d on

map) are actually large rodents.

New on exhibit in the hoofed stock area

(number 9d on map), around the corner from

the zebra and wildebeest exhibit, are a pair of

Patagonian cavies (Do/ichotis patagona). This

is one of the largest and most unusual-looking

of all the world’s nearly 1800 species of

rodents. With their long, stiff ears and their

long back legs, Patagonian cavies look a little

bit like rabbits or hares, which are not rodents

at all but are placed in a separate order of

mammals. But no rabbit or hare reaches as

great a size as this rodent species, individuals

of which may weigh up to about 35 pounds

and frequently weigh over 20 pounds.

Patagonian cavies inhabit the pampas of

Argentina, which are arid grasslands with a

few shrubs. Known to the Argentinians as

‘“maras,”’ they spend the night in burrows,

which they may either dig for themselves or

find abandoned by other animals. In the day

they feed on grass and other vegetation,

usually in small groups, but occasionally in

assemblages numbering as many as 40.

In the wild maras are reported to spend a

good deal of their time basking in the sun,

and the National Zoo’s pair certainly seem to

enjoy stretching out in the autumn sunlight.

This species has several unusual resting

postures. In one the mara sits on its haunches

with its front legs stretched out at full length.

Another resembles a cat’s way of sitting, with

the front legs tucked under the chest. This is

a highly atypical posture for a rodent to

assume. At other times, a Patagonian cavy

may lie on one side like a dog.

Since October, 1971, these two Patagonian

cavies have been kept off exhibit at the

National Zoo’s Scientific Research Building,

where they and other rodents of the suborder

Caviomorpha are being studied. They did not

breed successfully there. But shortly before

being moved to their current quarters, they

were observed mating; and it is believed that

the female may be pregnant at this writing.

New Giant Anteater

The National Zoo’s famous and beloved fe-

male giant anteater (Myrmecophaga tridac-

tyla) died last April after having lived here 26

years, by far a captive longevity record for

this species. Immediately Zoo officials began

looking for a replacement, and in August a

juvenile giant anteater was placed on exhibit

in the cage at the rear of the Small Mammal

House (number 15 on map) that had been the

previous giant anteater’s home. The new

arrival, which is believed to be a male, is.

The Zoo’s new giant anteater is located at the Small Mammal House (number 15 on map).

probably only a little more than a year old

and has attained less than a third of her

eventual length, when its body and tail will

each be over a yard long. It seems to be

thriving, however, on the porridge of milk,

éggs, and strained meat that forms the tra-

ditional diet for this species in captivity.

Needless to say, it is impossible for a zoo to

provide a constant supply of the ants and

termites on which giant anteaters feed in the

wild; and, although they have evolved unusual

specializations for feeding on these insects,

giant anteaters seem readily able to switch

foods in captivity. The powerful claws on the

forefeet, used to rip open termite and ant

mounds, are one such special adaptation.

Another is the long tongue, which is coated

with sticky saliva to pick up these insects and

their eggs and cocoons and in an adult can be

extended a full two feet beyond the mouth;

it has proved equally effective in lapping up a

captive anteater’s porridge into Its tiny

round mouth, which is barely half an inch

in diameter.

Zoo personnel like to tell of the one time the

Zoo’s previous giant anteater had a chance to

use her remarkable feeding apparatus on live

insect prey similar to that for which it was

designed. Once, the story goes, the Zoo

administration building was riddled with

termites; and the anteater was given the run

of several of the most infested areas, thus

performing a valuable (and ecologically

sound) pest-control service and apparently

enjoying herself immensely in the process.

When its new anteater is of age, the Zoo

hopes to acquire a mate for it. This species

has seldom been bred in zoos, but reports

exist of its fascinating method of caring for

its single young, which the mother carries on

her back for up to a year.

Moustached Tamarins

The Zoo’s Small Mammal House (number 75

on map) contains a remarkable collection of

the tiny, active New World monkeys known as

marmosets and tamarins. Most notable are

the beautiful and endangered golden marmo-

sets (Leontideus rosalia), which the Zoo is

breeding intensively. There are also Geoffrey’s

marmosets (Saguinus geoffroyi), cottontop

marmosets (Saguinus oedipus), and white-

fronted marmosets (Ca/lithrix geoffroyi).

Recently, a fifth species has been added — a

pair of moustached tamarins (Saquinus

mystax)., These monkeys, black and brown

over the entire body except for a ‘‘moustache’”’.

of white around the mouth, are to be found

on the line of glass-fronted marmoset cages

to the right of the front door of the Small

Mammal House.

-Moustached tamarins inhabit the Amazonian

tropical forest. Little is known of their life in

the wild, except that they share the marmosets

diurnal habits and unique form of rearing the

young. Young marmosets, which are usually

born in pairs, are carried on the father’s back;

_he returns them to the mother for nursing

-every two or three hours. Moustached tama-

rins are believed to be omnivorous like other

marmosets, feeding on fruit, some tender

vegetation, insects, small vertebrates, and

perhaps birds’ eggs. In the Zoo they are fed

a specially formulated canned food, fruit and

vegetables, crickets, and young mice.

’

Marmosets are rather unusual among primates

in that the thumb Is not opposable to the other

fingers; in fact, the thumb is short and almost

non-functional. The thumb is likewise de-

generate or even absent in some primates that

— like the spider monkeys at the Monkey

House (number 27 on map) -- often swing

through trees by their hands. Marmosets,

however, do not progress hanging by their

hands. Rather, they spring from branch to

branch, propelling themselves mainly by

means of their back legs and using all four

limbs in landing.

New Siamang Gibbon

Ever since her arrival here in 1969, the

National Zoo’s female gibbon (Symphalangus

syndactylus) has drawn the attention of

This young male siamang gibbon has joined the

Zoo’s female siamang in her outdoor enclosure

(Number 22n on map).

visitors with her acrobatics and her spectacular

vocal displays. Now a juvenile male siamang

gibbon has been acquired as a companion for

her and is sharing her enclosure (number 22n

on map). At present the pair look more

mother and son; but in a couple of years the

male will be full grown, and then hopefully

the pair will mate.

Siamang gibbons are native to dense reiny and

foggy forests on the Malay Peninsula and the

island of Sumatra. There they travel through

the almost uninterrupted canopy of the tree-

tops by means of their long, powerful arms,

pausing occasionally to feed on fruit and

leaves. While moving, the siamang supports

its weight on the long fingers of its hand,

which it holds together like a hook. When it

walks on the ground, which is only very

rarely, it is much less agile; standing erect and

holding both arms high over its head, it

walks along bipedally, as the Zoo’s siamangs

can be seen doing when they walk along the

floor of their cage.

In the wild siamangs live in small family groups

consisting of one adult male, one adult female,

and their immature offspring. Members of

_ each of these groups join in a chorus of

vocalizations every morning, which is answered —

by other groups throughout the forest. These

choruses seem to function to reinforce group

identity and to remind other siamangs of

the group’s existence and warn them away

from its territory. |

Mated pairs of siamangs in zoos have often

been observed performing vocal ‘‘duets’’ in

the morning and at other times during the

day; these duets seem to have a complex and ~

A 3 OMAP

. Connecticut Avenue pedestrian entrance 19. Small Mammal Building

eso)

SOEONATAWNo

11. Elephant House

12. Water birds (a-e)

13. Hawks and owls (a-c)

4. Goat mountain areas (a-e)

. Connecticut Avenue vehicular entrance 16. Lesser Pandas

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highly patterned structure. So when the

Zoo’s male is old enough to join the female

in displays of this sort, the result will no

doubt outdo both in volume and in behavioral

interest what the female is capable of alone.

Already he has begun to join in her vocal

displays to a certain extent, sometimes

repeating her display patterns when she

pauses for a minute or two.

Birds

Ground Hornbills

Added to Waterhole Exhibit

A further complement has been added to the

East African Waterhole exhibit (number 9a on

map) in the form of a pair of Abyssinian

ground hornbills (Bocorvus abyssinicus).

Moving among the zebra and wildebeest, these

ground-feeding birds add a further authentic

touch to the scene. Found in a belt across

tropical Africa from Gambia and Nigeria to

Ethiopia, Uganda, and Kenya, these birds

inhabit open country, including areas where

hoofed mammals graze, feeding on small rep-

tiles and large insects, such small birds and

mammals as they can catch, and some fruit.

Abyssinian ground hornbills are related to the

rhinoceros hornbill of Asia, a pair of which are

on exhibit at the Bird House (number 5 on

map). But, unlike these and most other mem-

bers of the hornbill family, the Abyssinian

ground hornbills are, as their name suggests,

highly terrestrial in their habits. Their long,

powerful turkey-like legs are one striking

adaptation for this way of life.

Another difference between these two horn-

bill species is that in the Abyssinian ground

hornbill, the casque — the horny growth on

top of the bill — is soft and open in the

front, while in the rhinoceros hornbill it is

closed in the front and hard as ivory. In

addition, the sexes are alike in the rhinoceros

hornbill except that the male’s casque is

larger. The sexes are more easily distinguished

in the African species. The male Abyssinian

ground hornbill has blue bare skin on his

face and red bare skin on his throat and

neck, whereas in the female both areas are

blue.

The ground hornbills also do not share the

unusual nesting customs typical of the horn-

bill family. The hornbills are famous for the

male’s habit of walling the female and her

eggs into a nest cavity, leaving only a small

hole through which he feeds her and her

young. The ground hornbills nest much less

elaborately, laying their two white eggs in a

hollow tree or stump lined with a few leaves.

New Ostriches

The male of the Zoo’s new. pair of ostriches, recently

added to the East African waterhole exhibit (number

9a on map).

Yet another avian addition to the East

African exhibit (number 9a on map) isa

pair of young ostriches (Struthio camelus).

This largest of living bird species Is like-

wise native to the African veldt. The male

can be distinguished by the dark black color

of his body feathers and the white plumes on

his wings and tail. He uses these wings, which

are useless for flight, in courting the female.

Each male courts one or more females, all of

which lay their eggs in a communal nest

which takes the form of a hole scratched out

by the male in a sandy spot. The male guards

the nest even before the eggs are laid and sits

on the nest as each female lays, immediately

pushing the eggs under his body with his beak

and neck. In addition, the male takes a large

part in the incubation of the eggs.

Ostriches grow to a height of over nine feet.

They are excellent runners, able to maintain

speeds of 30 miles an hour for nearly half an

hour, and they have been clocked at 42 miles

an hour over short distances. One adaptation

for speed is the reduced number of tues. The

ostrich has only two toes; in this fact of its

evolution it could be said to parallel the

hoofed mammals with which the National

Zoo’s new pair share their enclosure.

Reptiles and

Amphibians

Coconut Crabs

One of the newest exhibits at the Reptile

House (number 19 on map) contains some

very interesting animals that are not reptiles

or amphibians at all; in fact, they are not

even vertebrates. These are the coconut

crabs in cage E-13. These crabs, which are

found on islands throughout the Pacific and

Indian Oceans, have attracted the interest of

naturalists for many years with their unusual

life history and feeding habits.

As its name suggests, coconuts are the staple

of this terrestial crab’s diet. The crabs, which

spend the day in burrows and emerge at night

to feed, painstakingly bore holes in fallen

coconuts from which they extract the meat.

The process of making a hole in the coconut

takes the crab many hours of pounding with

its claws; when the hole is completed, the

crab inserts each claw in turn and withdraws

it with a mouthful of meat. When Charles

Darwin visited the Pacific islands, he was

told that coconut crabs climbed trees to break

off green coconuts and then climbed back

down to the ground to retrieve them. He

did not believe this report, and his skepticism

has proved to have been justified. Coconut

crabs do climb caconut trees, but only toa

height of six feet at most and for purposes

which are not well understood. They never

climb as high as the coconuts themselves,

and there are always plenty of fallen coco-

nuts on the ground for them to feed on.

Crabs belong to the phylum of animals known

as the arthropods; other arthropods are

spiders and insects. All arthropods have

jointed legs and an external skeleton made up

of a tough material known as chitin. Like

many other arthropods, coconut crabs go

through several life stages in which the crab is

quite different in appearance and habits from

what it is at other stages. This sort of meta-

morphosis is familiar from butterflies and

other insects.

The female coconut crab carries her eggs to

the ocean where they hatch, and the tiny,

almost microscopic larvae immediately swim

out to sea. The larvae live in the sea about 20

or 30 days, feeding on tiny oceanic organisms.

Then they return to land and a second life

stage. In this stage, which lasts three or four

weeks, the crab takes up residence in an

abandoned mollusk shell. This habit is well

known in the hermit crabs, which belong to

the same family as the coconut crabs. But

the hermit crab remains in its borrowed

residence for its entire life, while the coconut

crab emerges to bury itself in the sand and

metamorphose into a small version of its

adult form. Young coconut crabs, like those

at the Reptile House, weigh only a few pounds.

Fully grown adults, however, at least on some

islands, may measure three feet across the

back and weigh some 30 pounds.

Giant Anaconda

A new exhibit at the Reptile House (number

19 on map) features a giant anaconda or water

boa (Eunectes murinus) housed in an aquarium

tank (cage E-10). This brown-and-green

mottled snake is one of the world’s largest,

reaching a length of around 20 feet and per-

haps more. Unlike its relatives the boas and

its more distant relatives the pythons, the

anaconda is a truly aquatic species. Native

to tropical South America, it spends most of

its time in still or slow-moving water that is

deep enough and has sufficient plant cover to

hide the snake, but it is equally adept on land.

The Zoo’s seven-foot specimen can usually be

seen coiled on the rocks by the side of the

water, resting partly submerged with its head

and neck up on the rocks, or sometimes swim-

ming in its tank.

The anaconda feeds on some mammals, prob-

ably including deer, peccaries, and such large

rodents as agoutis and pacas. Sometimes it

apparently captures them when they approach

the water to drink, but it probably also forages

on land in search of mammalian prey. It is

also known to eat some other reptiles, includ-

ing turtles and caimans, and a large amount of

fish; perhaps also it catches an occasional water

bird. Tales of anacondas eating full-grown men

or even a horse and rider together were wide-

spread in the nineteenth century; but, like

persistent exaggerations of the size to which

these snakes can grow, such stories are now

believed to be without foundation.

One interesting characteristic of these snakes

and other members of their family, the boas

and pythons, is the possession of “‘spurs.”’

Actually these are the vestiges of the hind

limbs snakes’ ancestors lost long ago. They

find at least one important use in the

modern-day anacondas and boas; in courtship

the males use them to scratch and apparently

to stimulate the female. The anaconda’s

young, which number from 28 to 42, are

born live; they are about 27 inches long at

birth and one inch in diameter.

The true tortoises, known to scientists as the

Testudinidae, comprise an ancient and inter-

esting family of turtles, which includes some

of the largest and most spectacular of present-

day reptiles — the giant tortoises of the

Galapagos and Aldabra islands. Of all turtles,

tortoises are the most terrestial. Living in

dry and often hot regions, they represent the

most complete reversal of the dominant

aquatic trend in turtle evolution. As one

would expect, the most readily apparent dif-

ferences between them and other turtles —

their cylindrical, column-like hind limbs and

their unwebbed toes — are adaptations for

travel on land.

Another peculiarity is the heavily scaled fore-

limbs, which are folded in front of the head

to protect it when it is drawn into the shell.

Still another characteristic that sets tortoises

apart from virtually every other turtle is the

fact that all of them — from the giants to the

ten-inch Berlandier’s tortoise — seem to be

predominantly vegetarian.

Tortoises are proverbially slow-moving and

proverbially persistent. There is some truth

to both of these reputations. Charles Darwin

clocked the speed of a Galapagos tortoise at

360 yards an hour, or four miles a day. He

wrote that the inhabitants of the Galapagos,

from observing marked individuals, believed

the tortoises travelled a distance of about

eight miles in two or three days. Some other

tortoises are much less prone to travel. The

gopher tortoise of Florida and the Gulf Coast

rarely goes more than 50 to 100 feet from

its burrow entrance.

Tortoises’ “prehistoric” appearance, too, is

_ legendary, and it betrays their ancient lineage.

No one knows for certain where or when

tortoises first evolved; but 50 or 60 million

years ago, when vast grasslands developed in

North America, the ancestors of tortoises

seem to have moved from lowland marshes

onto these open areas and to have developed

a large number of very successful species

there. In any event between 30 and 35

million years ago tortoises were extraordinarily

numerous on the North American grasslands,

where they grazed along side early ancestors

of camels, elephants, and horses. Some 50

fossil species — many of them giant-sized

tortoises, larger than the Galapagos and

Aldabra tortoises of today — have been

discovered from that time.

There were numerous giant tortoises in

Africa and South America as well, and it is

from these populations that the surviving

giants are descended. For a variety of

poorly understood reasons, the giant tor-

toises began to die out on the continental

mainlands, a gradual process that continued

until about a million years ago, when at

least one giant species was still found in

South America. Giant tortoises remained

only on two isolated chains of tropical vol-

canic islands — the Aldabra Islands in the

Indian Ocean and the Galapagos Islands in

the Pacific Ocean. The tortoises found on

the continental mainlands in our own day are

descendants of smaller species that were

better adapted to survive the changed con-

ditions there.

It is something of a mystery how tortoises

got from the continents to the island

strongholds where they were able to survive.

It is 600 miles from the Galapagos Islands to

the South American mainland, while the

Aldabra Islands are 450 miles from the

African mainland and 300 miles from

Madagascar. It is generally agreed that

neither archipelago was ever directly con-

nected to a larger land mass. Thus, tortoises

must have floated to the islands. This may

seem hard to believe; the continent may have

been closer to the Galapagos in the past, but

now it is estimated that it would take a

floating object six weeks on the open ocean

to cover the distance. Still, there is evidence

that giant tortoises can float on the ocean

for some time without ill effects. Once a

herpetologist was considerably surprised to

find a giant tortoise floating in Florida Bay;

he later discovered that it had escaped from

captivity on one of the Florida Keys and had

somehow managed to fall into the water.

Aldabra tortoises (Geochelone gigantea)

reach a length of 40 inches or more; the maxi-

mum recorded length is 55 inches. They may

weigh as much as 400 pounds. Galapagos tor-

toises (Geochelone elephantopus) reach about

the same length, although the maximum re-

corded for this species is a good deal larger at

five-and-a-half feet; they may weigh up to 500

pounds. Both species are renowned not only

for their large size but for the great ages to

which individuals are supposed to live. In-

deed, all tortoises and most turtles are popu-

larly supposed to be among the most long-

lived of animals; and, although definite

records are hard to come by, many authorities

believe that some species of tortoise and some

other turtle species do sometimes attain

ages of up to 100 years. Dates carved on

‘turtle shells are of no value, needless to say,

since they are easily faked. Large size, too,

does not necessarily indicate advanced age.

Full growth is reached at the age of about 20

years; and, although growth continues after

that, it does so very slowly.

The National Zoo has 3 Aldabra tortoises and

5 Galapagos tortoises. From May to October,

both species are located in an outdoor yard

(number 20 on map), and the rest of the year

they are kept in cages inside the Reptile

House (number 19 on map).

In addition, the smaller members of the

One of the National Zoo’s three Aldabra giant tortoises.

Testudinidae are represented in the National

Zoo’s collection by a variety of species. The

leopard tortoise (Geochelone pardalis) of

Africa in cage A-7 belongs to the same genus

as the giant tortoises and is one of the larger

continental species. Individuals may reach a

length of 20 inches and a weight of over 50

pounds. Two other African species are

represented — the pancake tortoise (Mala-

cochersus tornieri) in cage A-6 and the hinge-

back tortoise (Kinixys belliana) in cage C-23.

Both of these species show unusual modifica-

tions of the shell that make them some of the

most interesting of the tortoises.

The family Testudinidae are relatively young

when compared with the order of turtles

itself. Turtles have existed with the same

essential features for perhaps 175 million

years. A probable ancestor, called Eunoto-

saurus, has been found which lived about 250

million years ago. It had broadened ribs that

seem to indicate that it was on the way

towards evolving a shell. It is the evolution of

19.

Three African. tortoise species on exhibit at the Reptile House: leopard tortoise in-cage A-7 (/eft); pancake

tortoise in cage A-6 (upper right); hinge-back tortoise in cage C-23 (/ower /eft).

the shell, of course, that distinguished the first

turtles, and most turtles have retained this

remarkable armor with few modifications.

They have changed their basic structure less

over a longer time than any other group of

four-legged vertebrates.

Each half of the turtle’s shell, both the upper

half or carapace and the lower half or plastron,

is composed of two layers, an outer one of

horny scales or shields and an inner one of

bony plates. The bony plates interlock, as do

the shields, but they are not joined at the

same places as the shields. The backbone Is

fused with the carapace, and the ribs have

been greatly expanded so that they support

the upper half of the shell. This means that

in effect the girdles, the bones that support

the limbs are inside the ribcage — a highly

unconventional arrangement.

The hinge-back tortoise is one of the few

turtles in which the shell has been modified.

In this species, the rear end of the carapace

can be closed tightly against the plastron to

protect the back legs and tail. Interestingly

this condition is not present in the newborn

tortoise but develops gradually with age. The

sutures between the plates in an arc across the

rear end of the carapace gradually disappear

and are replaced by flexible cartilege. The

backbone, which is hinged, is then free to

bend to close the shell. The box turtle of

North America — sometimes wrongly called a

‘box tortoise’ because it is a land-dweller,

although it is not a true tortoise — is another

turtle that has a hinged shell. In the box

turtle, however, it is the plastron that is

hinged. In addition, the box turtle is able

to close its shell at both front and rear, while

the hinge-back tortoise can only close the

rear of its shell and in the front must rely on

the usual tortoise device of folding its heavily

scaled forelimbs in front of its head.

The evolution of the shell necessitated

unusual rearrangements of the typical

vertebrate body plan. One obviously needed

rearrangement involved the manner of

breathing. Tightly wedged in its shell, the

turtle cannot expand and contract its chest

at all. Thus it has had to evolve a method of

expanding and contracting its lungs inside

its shell while the chest itself remains rigid.

The capacious lungs are attached to the inside

of the shell at the top. Below they are

attached to a non-muscular diaphragm of

connective tissue. This diaphragm is kept

stretched downward by the weight of the

liver and alimentary canal, which are attached

to it. To draw air into its lungs, the turtle

contracts a pair of muscles at the side of

its body, flattening a layer of connective

tissue beneath these internal organs. This

‘causes the organs to move downwards,

pulling the diaphragm and the lower lung

wall along with them. This increases the

volume of the lung cavity, causing air to

biting at a partly bleached bone of such a

carcass. In captivity, tortoises of several

species eat meat or insects and other inverte-

brates; but by and large, vegetarian habits

are one of the characteristics that distin-

guish this family. Grass provides the bulk of

the diets of such geographically distant tor-

toise and the Galapagos tortoise. The pan-

cake tortoise, too, eats a lot of grass. Some

other species have more exotic diets. The

hinge-back tortoise feeds on fallen bananas

and mangoes, sugarcane, and fungi.

The Galapagos tortoises also eat a fair amount

of cactus fruit and cactus pads at certain

times of the year; in fact, the pressure tor- |

toise feeding habits seem to have exerted on

the evolution of cactus on those islands is a

remarkable example of the way tortoises,

with their long history on earth, have influ-

enced other life forms. On four of the fifteen

Galapagos islands, there have apparently

rush in and fill it. By contracting other muscles never been any tortoises. There only species

under the liver and alimentary canal, the tur-

tle pushes these organs and the diaphragm up

to squeeze against the lungs and expel air

from them.

The pancake tortoise is unique among turtles

in being actually able to expand its chest.

This is made possible by one of the most

revolutionary modifications of the shell in

the entire order. The horny shields of the

shell are present, but they are soft and flex-

ible; and the bony substructure has become

paper-thin and riddled with holes. The

aquatic soft-shelled turtles (family Triony-

chidae), by contrast, have lost only the

horny outer shields. The pancake tortoise

can literally be squeezed out of shape be-

tween thumb and forefinger. Moreover, by

filling its lungs it can inflate its whole body

and make itself considerably larger. The

pancake tortoise in fact relies on this ability

for protection instead of a hard shell. Spend-

ing much of its time in rock crevices, the

tortoise has only to inflate itself and stick

out its legs like struts, and it is inextricably

wedged in the crevice.

No tortoise is definitely known to eat animal

food in the wild, although both gopher tor-

toises and Galapagos tortoises have been

sighted around decaying carcasses of goats

and cattle and one gopher tortoise was seen

of prickly-pear cactus is found, a low-growing,

spreading species with soft, flexible spines.

On the tortoise islands, however, the prickly

pears have sharp, stiff spines and long, straight

tree-like trunks with no branches. This form,

said to be unique among the prickly-pears of

the world, is believed to have evolved as a

means of protecting the cactus’s fruit and

pads from the tortoises.

The pads of the prickly-pears grow in the

wet season, from January to May. The pads

grown in the previous year’s wet season,

which have become shriveled during the dry

season, fill up with water at this time and fall

to the ground under their own weight. Only

then are the tortoises able to eat them. The

tortoises eat the fruit too when it falls to the

ground. The seeds pass unharmed through

the tortoise’s digestive system, and in fact

the reptile’s feces provide valuable nourish-

ment for the seedlings during the early

stages of their growth. The resulting seed-

ling immediately develops a heavy coating of

protective spines.

Many tortoise species are solitary and get

together with others of their kind only to

mate. The Galapagos and Aldabra tortoises,

living on relatively small islands, intermingle

frequently, but as yet the nature of their

social interactions are poorly understood.

The only types of social interaction in tor-

toises that have been described to any extent

are courtship and combats among males at

mating season. Often the type of male com-

bat described for tortoises consists of each

male, his head withdrawn into his shell,

ramming the overhanging front of his cara-

pace against the other male’s shell. This

type of combat was observed in a captive

group of leopard tortoises. It continued

until one male was overturned. He quickly

righted himself and scurried off while the

other male began to pursue a female that

was nearby and had perhaps occasioned the

conflict. She showed no interest, but the

male persisted in his attentions, which con-

sisted of the same sort of shell ramming as

had taken place in the male combat, alter-

nated with walking in a circle around her.

This courtship would continue for hours

at a stretch.

Galapagos tortoise males also sometimes ram

each other in combat, charging from as far as

six feet away and withdrawing the head just

before impact. But other forms of combat

seem to be more common. Each male may

stand with his plastron as high above the

ground as possible and with its mouth open

wide attempt to bite down on the top of the

other male’s head. Often, too, both males

may extend their necks and wave their

heads from side to side, sometimes banging

their heads together.

There are reports that Galapagos tortoise

courtship consists of the male circling the

usually much smaller female, facing the side

of her shell, then raising himself as high as

possible and dropping his plastron on her

Galapagos tortoise

entering a mud wallow;

like similar behavior in the

wild, this probably aids

the tortoise in regulating

its own body temperature.

carapace to produce a loud thud. During

mating, many male tortoises utter surprisingly

lous vocalizations; this seems to be the only

time at which tortoises ever make any sounds

at all. The National Zoo’s Aldabra tortoise

males can sometimes be heard producing

loud grunting roars when the tortoises are

mating in their outdoor enclosure.

In the pancake tortoise, ramming with the

shell is impossible, but the aggressive nature

of tortoise courtship seems only to have

been increased. In this species the male

snaps occasionally at the female’s limbs as he

follows her around. He climbs on her back

and bites at her head whenever she dares to

thrust it out of her shell. Some males were

even seen taking hold of the female’s cara-

pace in their jaws and dragging her along,

then eventually getting beneath her in an

attempt to overturn her.

Like all turtles, tortoises bury their eggs in

the ground. The pancake tortoise is unique

in laying a single elongate egg, but most tor-

toises lay a number of eggs. The leopard

tortoise is a typical example. The female

digs the hole with her hind feet; she alter-

nately scrapes each foot around on the

ground behind her and then brings it up and

to the side with a small amount of soil pre-

cariously balanced on it — most of which

falls right back into the hole. As she is

digging, however, she urinates profusely

from time to time, and the fluid serves both

to soften hard ground and to cake powdery

soil so that it is easier to excavate.

The completed hole is about five inches

A. The Executive Committee shall consist of the officers of the

Corporation and, in addition, three Directors to be elected by the

Board for the term of one year, who shall be eligible for re-election.

Four members of the Committee shall constitute a quorum for the

transaction of business at any meeting. The President shall, ex

‘officio, be Chairman of the Executive Committee. The Executive

Committee shall, under the policy guidance of the Board, have general

control of the administration of the Corporation and general super-

vision of its normal activities. The Committee shall report to the

Board at each meeting of the latter on all matters handled by the

Committee. The Executive Committee shall meet once each month at

a time and place to be determined by the President.

B. The Finance Committee shall consist of the Treasurer of the

Corporation, who shall serve as Chairman, and a minimum of three

other members of the Board, who shall be elected by the Board for

a term of one year, and shall be eligible for re-election. The

Committee shall institute, develop and supervise the financial and

fiscal operations of the Corporation to assure adherence to policies

determined by the Board as well as sound business practice.

C. The Education Committee shall consist of a minimum of five

members of the Board and such other members of the Corporation who

shall be elected by the Board for a period of one year and shall be

eligible for re-election. The Chairman shall be appointed by the

President, with the approval of the Board. The Committee shall super-

vise all educational activities authorized by the Board and, from time

to time, make recommendations to the Board for additional activities.

D. The Nominating Committee shall consist of five members who shall

be active or former members of the Board, elected by the Board for a

period of one year. The Chairman shall be appointed by the President,

with the approval of the Board. The Committee shall present to the

Board nominations for Officers of the Corporation and for all vacancies

on the Board, and shall present the list of such nominations to the

members of the Corporation at the annual meeting.

Sec. 2. Other Committees may be appointed by the President from time

to time as required.

Article V (Executive Director) - addition, reads:

Sec. 1. The President shall, with the approval of the Board, appoint

an Executive Director at a salary and for a term to be determined

by the Board, to carry on the day-to-day operations of the Corporation.

The Executive Director shall be in charge of the office of the

Corporation, and shall, under the direction of the Executive Committee,

Supervise the various activities of the Corporation and shall be

responsible for liaison with the administration of the National

Zoological Park at all levels. He shall normally attend all meetings

of the Executive Committee and of the Board but shall have no vote.

22A

A. The Executive Director shall be authorized to employ such office,

clerical, and other personnel as the Board deems necessary for the

proper and efficient functioning of the Corporation.

Article VI (Meetings of the Corporation) - Section 1 - change "May" to

“October.”

Section 2 - Third sentence now reads, "Nominations for such posts

shall be presented to the members by the Chairman of the

Nominating Committee and additional nominations may be presented

from the floor." : |

Section 3 - after the Vice-President, add, “the Second Vice-President."

Section 4 - change "at least seven days" to “at least ten days."

SEE YOU AT THE UPTOWN THEATER ON NOVEMBER 4, 11 AND 18 FOR THE

FONZ FREE FILM FESTIVAL, AND ON NOVEMBER 21 FOR THE SPECIAL ANNUAL

MEETING.

22B

deep. The eggs may number up to 23 in this

pecies and are almost exactly the size and

shape of ping-pong balls. As she lays each

egg, the tortoise puts down a foot to feel

for the egg, then pushes it into the bottom of

‘the hole. When all the eggs are laid, she tram-

ples down the soil around the rim of the hole

to fill it in. She does this so mechanically

that when a naturalist moved a leopard tor-

toise female covering her nest hole and placed

her in a different spot, she continued to tram-

‘ple until he returned her to her nest.

Finally, the soil on top of the filled-in hole is

attened with the plastron, the tortoise rais-

‘ing herself on all four legs and suddenly let-

ting her shell fall to the ground. For a week

‘or more after laying, the female seems to re-

‘turn to spend the night on top of the nest.

‘But when the eggs hatch — usually in eight

‘months but sometimes as much as 18 months

ater — she has long departed; and the young

tortoises, like all turtle hatchlings, must fend

entirely for themselves.

The Galapagos tortoise moulds a cap of mud

‘on top of her nest with her plastron. This

hardens in the sun so that when the young

‘tortoises hatch, they must remain sealed in

the egg chamber until rain loosens the soil.

Many nesting cavities have been found which

did not receive rainfall and contained dead

‘hatchlings. The function of this careful

‘sealing is not easy to understand, but before

the coming of man to the islands it had no

‘harmful effects on the population. Then

adult tortoises had no real enemies; and with

a reproductive life probably well over 50

years, each tortoise could produce a pheno-

menal number of offspring if there were no

check on their numbers.

Now, ironically, the tortoises are fighting an

uphill battle for their very survival. For

some three hundred years after the islands’

discovery, ocean vessels stopped and captured

the tortoises in great numbers for food. The

tortoises’ ability to survive for up to a year

without food or care packed tightly in the

hull of a ship made them especially desirable

as provisions. Later, human settlers intro-

duced cattle and donkeys which competed

with the tortoises for grazing areas and cats,

dogs, pigs, and rats which preyed on eggs

and hatchlings.

There were originally 15 quite distinct sub-

species of tortoise on the Galapagos islands.

Five were confined to each of the five major

volcanoes on the large island of Albemarle

(which are believed to have originally been

five separate islands), while there was a dis-

tinct subspecies on each of the ten other

tortoise islands. Darwin was surprised and

interested to learn that the Governor of the

islands could tell which island a tortoise had

come from by looking at its carapace. Now

four of these subspecies are extinct and

others are close to extinction. Only on Albe-

marle and Indefatigable do populations

exist that seem really viable; there are over

1,000 tortoises on the latter island. On other

islands the numbers are believed to be so

small and protection so inadequate that the

tortoises’ extinction seems only a matter of

time. Perhaps captive breeding can help

stem the tide; the National Zoo plans to

send all of its Galapagos tortoises but one

to Honolulu, where intensive efforts are being

undertaken to breed the species in an environ-

ment similar to its native one.

In our own country, too, we have an endan-

gered tortoise species — Berlandier’s tor-

toise. Excessive collecting of these docile

tortoises for the pet trade has greatly de-

creased their numbers. Though it is now

illegal to capture them, the trade continues.

Meanwhile, other factors add to their de-

crease in numbers; as with all species of

land turtles when man begins to encroach on

their habitat, a great many are killed on high-

ways every year. Not only are tortoises too

slow to avoid cars when crossing a highway,

but sometimes they seem to choose high-

ways as places to sun themselves.

In fact nearly all of the world’s tortoise

species are probably declining somewhat. in

numbers every year. They are an ancient

group, it is true, but there is no evidence that

they are in any way outmoded. If left undis-

turbed to live as they have lived so long, they

would doubtless continue to exist for mil-

lions of years more. It is only the activities

of man — his continued disruption of natural

environments and thoughtless exploitation of

resources — that is causing the demise of these

reptiles that have been inhabitants of this

planet over 25 times as long as we have.