Published by

Friends of the National Zoo

National Zoological Park

Washington, D.C. 20009

Phones:

Executive Director and membership:

232-7700 ;

Educational and Editorial offices:

232-7703

Guided tours: 232-7703

Train tours: 232-7704

Window Shop: 232-7705

FONZ Board of Directors 1972-1973

Arthur Arundel, President

Montgomery S. Bradley, First Vice President

Lavell Merritt, Second Vice President

Stephen Hosmer, Treasurer

Joan L. Jewett, Secretary

Peter C. Andrews

Theodore Babbitt

Emanuel Boasberg

John S. Brown

Timothy V.A. Dillon

Ronald Field

Donna K. Grosvenor

Robert Mason

Isabel J. McDonnell

Shirley J. McNair

Ruth N. Nelson

John B. Oliver

Nancy Porter

Gerald G. Wagner

Rosa M. Walker

Richardson White, Jr.

Executive Director

Warren J. Iliff

Editor: Austin Hughes

Photographs by Ray Faass.

Production by Monica Johansen.

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 (of annual dues).

CONTENTS

Satin Bowerbird Courtship

Zoo News—Mammals

Zoo News—Birds

Zoo Map

Zoo News—Reptiles and Amphibians

Bears

Zoo Staff

Dr. Theodore H. Reed, Director

Mr. Edward Kohn, Deputy Director

Mr. Warren J. Iliff, Assistant Director

Mr. John Perry, Assistant Director

Mr. Jaren Horsley, General Curator

Mr. Harold Egoscue, Curator (Mammals)

Mr. William Xanten, Curator (Mammals)

Mr. Guy Greenwell, Curator (Birds)

Mr. Larry Collins, Associate Curator (Mammals)

Mr. Miles Roberts, Assistant Curator (Mammals)

Mr. Michael Davenport, Assistant Curator

(Reptiles)

Dr. Clinton Gray, Veterinarian

Dr. Mitchell Bush, Veterinarian

Dr. Robert Sauer, Pathologist

Dr. John Eisenberg, Resident Scientist

Dr. Helmut Buechner, Senior Ecologist

Dr. Devra Kleiman, Reproductive Zoologist

Mr. Norm Melun, Architect

Mr. Emanuel Petrella, Chief, Buildings & Grounds

Mr. Horsley has requested that any calls

concerning the collection be directed to his office

(381-7283 or 381-7284) and the appropriate staff

member will respond. Calls for general information

should be directed to Mr. Saul Schiffman, Division

of Interpretation, at 381-7228 or 381-7256.

Friends

the

National

The Friends of the National Zoo is a non-profit

organization of individuals and families who

frequently visit the National Zoo and who are

interested in supporting its growth and develop-

ment, particularly in the areas of education,

conservation, and scientific research.

As members of the Friends, you and your family

will be given benefits that will make your zoo-

going more enjoyable and educational.

For more information and a membership appli-

cation, please call 232-7700.

FRIENDS OF THE NATIONAL ZGDFILMS

Saturday, March 30." 1974-46-36" am

King Elephant

PaUUVday, Buri) 6, tare) teen aM

Masters of rhe Congo Jungle

FREE special neture filme ere park.ef the

benefits of your FONZ membership.

BPring-a fuest*="or"a“carful of guests =

and introduce them to the privileges and

Uptown Theater pleasures of FONZ membership. All guests

3426 Connecticut Ave, NW will be given free, special gifts.

Park’ free” at ‘the Zoo ‘and take the two block

walk to the Uptown and make a day of it -

have a picnic lunch and visit the Zoo later.

For infoernhabions 7 232e-77O0g9 100 FUN FOR THE WHOLE FAMILY

(over)

KING ELEPHANT - The world famous photographer Simon Trevor, spent

months capturing on color film the remarkable life

Story of the African Elephant. Close-up sequences

Vividly document the power and personality of the

largest living land animal roaming earth.

The dramatic film story of the African Elephant

and the land where he lives is particularly recom-

mended for youngsters.

MASTERS OF THE CONGO JUNGLE - Produced in cinemascope color, narrated

by Orson Welles, and supported by King Leopold II of

Belgium, this film represents a pioneering environ-

mental study of the remote jungles and snow-capped

mountains of the Belgian Congo and Ruandi-Urundi.

The feature-length documentary includes the first film

record of .gorilias..in the wild, an exciting hunting

expedition by pygmies, and superb close-ups of the rare

Okapi, lions, leopards, and fishing eagles in action.

"One of the most outstanding nature films ever

produced," says Dr. Reed, Director of the National Zoo.

(over)

Beginning in September the blue-black male

satin bowerbird (Pti/onorhynchus violaceus)

at the Bird House (number 5 on map) was

frequently seen displaying on a branch in

front of the olive-and-brown female, making

spluttering chatters that culminated when

he abruptly lifted his tail feathers. Often he

held something in his bill, usually a green

leaf. The female remained almost motionless,

showing no response. Soon afterward the

male could sometimes be seen on the ground,

picking up sticks with his bill and sometimes

planting them into the dirt of the cage floor.

At times a small structure would appear in

a patch of open earth, composed of a few

sticks planted in the earth and perhaps a

few other sticks, grasses, or pine needles

leaning against them.

The male was obviously beginning an

attempt to build a courtship bower, a struc-

ture used by males of this species to attract

females. The bowerbirds, a group of eighteen

species native to New Guinea and Australia,

are famous for these courtship structures,

which often assume quite elaborate form.

Some bowerbirds for instance, construct

towers nine feet high, with slanted roofs

and internal chambers; and it is not surprising

that the first explorer to discover such a

bower assumed it to be a human creation. The

bowerbirds are related to the birds of paradise;

and, as males of the latter group have evolved

brilliantly colored and fantastically shaped

courtship plumes, male bowerbirds—while

remaining rather plain in coloration—have

evolved the ability to build courtship objects

that have a similar attracting and stimulating

effect on the female.

The most primitive members of the bower-

bird family (Ptilonorhynchidae) build no

bowers at all. Of the simpler forms of bower

-a good example is provided by Archbold’s

bowerbird (Archboldia papuensis). The male

of this species occupies a small cleared area

in the mountain forest of New Guinea,

which he carpets with ferns and decorates

with bamboo shafts, dead beetles, snail shells,

and lumps of charcoal. Actual bowerbuilding .

seems to have evolved from the possession by

each male in breeding condition of such a

cleared and decorated area. Gradually, because

of the attraction some sort of adornment of

the area had on females, the building of more

and more elaborate bowers evolved.

Bowerbirds exemplify a form of avian

reproductive behavior known as arena or lek

behavior. Birds that exhibit arena behavior—

though totalling in all only one percent of

living species—are scattered over a wide

variety of families. Among species at the

Bird House, they include the great argus

pheasant (Argusianus argus) in cage #5 and

the Peruvian cock-of-the-rock (Rupicola

peruviana) in the Indoor Flight Room.

Arena behavior is characterized by the

possession by each male of a display court

during breeding season; the display courts of

a number of males are within sight or hearing

of each other, and such a cluster of courts is

known as an arena. Each male occupies his

court for at least several hours a day during

breeding season, defends it against other

males, and attempts by vocalizations, dis-

plays or other means to attract females to

it. A female approaches the arena, chooses

the court of one male, goes to it, is courted,

and mates with him there. Soon afterward

she leaves; and, at least in most cases, the

male will continue to display and attract

other females. Bowerbuilding originated

from the male’s attempt to enhance the

attractiveness to females of such a court.

After mating the female bowerbird leaves

the male’s court to build her cup-shaped nest

of twigs and leaves and—as do females of all

arena species—to rear her young alone. As

some primitive non-bower-building members

of the bowerbird family do, the ancestors of

all bowerbirds must at some time have formed

pairs both members of which shared in nest-

building and the rearing of the young. After

the arena form of behavior was adopted, it

has been theorized, the male still retained

strong drives towards nest-building, with

associated gathering, manipulation, and

weaving together of twigs and other materials.

The same impulses came to evolve in a new

direction, towards the building of courtship

objects, a direction determined by sexual

selection—the postulated selective force in

favor of behavioral or physical characteristics

on the part of one sex that increase its

chances of stimulating members of the

opposite sex to breed.

When the first bowerbuilding attempts were

observed on the part of the Zoo’s male,

numerous twigs about nine inches long were

added to the birds’ cage, #2 to the right of the

front entrance of the building. The male

proceeded to take these and lay them evenly

on the cage floor in a protected open space

behind a large log to the right of the cage. As

The bower, showing the central ‘“‘avenue”’ in which copulation takes place.

still more twigs were provided, the male would

take a stick in his bill, holding it at about

mid-point, and then plant it with a sideways

and downward motion of the head. Many

other sticks were laid against these and loosely

interwoven together, the whole assuming the

form of two concave walls, facing each other

in the center of the bower area and about

four inches apart. As the bower neared

completion the male became increasingly

aggressive in defending it against intrusion

by other birds in the cage. While working on

the bower, the male often walked through

the ‘‘avenue’”’ in its center; and when a male

of this species has succeeded in his courtship

of a female, copulation takes place in this

avenue.

Interestingly this avenue—in the wild and in

captive birds with access to natural light—is

always placed in an approximately north-

south direction. Of 66 satin bowerbird bowers

examined in the species’ native eastern

Australia the deviation from this orientation

was never more than 30 degrees. When an

experimenter shifted satin bowerbirds’ bowers

both in the field and in the laboratory to an

east-west direction, the males destroyed their

bowers and promptly rebuilt them with the

preferred orientation. Since the male’s activity

at his bower begins in early morning, the

bower’s orientation may help the male and

female keep each other in view during

courtship without having to look directly into

the sun. In any event, the Zoo’s bowerbirds

are exposed to some sunlight through the

ceiling of their cage, and the bower is built

in an approximately north-south direction.

The male satin bowerbird decorates his

bower and the ground surrounding it with a

wide variety of objects. As regards the color

The Zoo’s male satin bowerbird at his bower.

of these decorations he shows a strong

preference for blues and violets, with a

secondary preference for yellowish green.

Since blue is the male’s color and green the

color of females and of not-fully-adult males,

these preferences fit well with the theory that

bower-building and bower-decoration are

evolutionary extensions of the species-

specific attractive functions so often

performed by plumage in other birds. Wild

males use blue and violet flowers and berries,

blue parrot feathers, such bluish man-made

objects as glass and paper, and perhaps

greenish-yellow flowers and fruits. The Zoo’s

male was given pieces of blue cloth and blue

glass, which he proceeded to strew around the

bower. Often too he would take up one of

these objects in his bill and present it to

the female as she perched impassively on

a branch; as he displayed to her, his eyes

would bulge and his churring vocalizations

would increase in intensity. In the wild males

have been found to steal such objects from

neighboring males’ bowers, the other bowers

that make up the arena, and add them to

their own; this behavior provides a striking

illustration of the intense competition that

occurs among males of arena species.

One of the most interesting aspects of the

satin bowerbird’s behavior is that in the wild

Some males have been reported to actually

“paint’’ their bowers with a mixture of

powdered charcoal and saliva, using a wad of

soft bark to apply it. This is one of the few

instances of tool-use found in birds. The

tool is in the form of an oval pellet of several

small pieces of bark wadded together and

functions more as a “sponge” than as a

“brush.” It is kept almost wholly in the

bird’s beak while in use; its sides, extending

beyond the sides of the bill and covered

with the “‘paint”’ are applied to the twigs of

the bower. It is said that the paint may be

replaced daily when the male is in the

height of his reproductive condition.

The Zoo’s female’s first signs of showing

responsiveness to the male’s activity were

that she would at times approach the vicinity

of the bower. Also, although ordinarily silent,

she began to vocalize occasionally, producing

a sound reminiscent of a cat’s caterwaul or,

at other times, a high, sharp bark-like note.

This male has built a bower once previously, in

the spring of 1972; and, although successful

breeding did not take place at that time, some

of the behavior patterns indicative of a state

of excitation on the part of the female were

observed. She would spend long periods

flying back and forth the length of the cage,

pausing only briefly at each end. She would

then sometimes approach the male with her

bill open, panting heavily. Finally, after the

bower had been in existence about a month,

the female was seen walking into its central

avenue for the first time and even pulling

with her bill at one of the sticks composing

it. The male, on the ground nearby, would

raise one wing, and vibrate his tail for about

thirty seconds, then raise the other wing in

turn to the accompaniment of a loud whistle.

In the male’s current bower-building activity

he has not yet shown the remarkable and

varied vocalizations that accompanied the

most intense stages of his previous courtship.

Then the male produced a wide variety of

calls from a soft cawing to whistles, twitters,

clucks, and cricket-like chirps—all of which

he would usually run through in rapid

succession. In the wild, the male satin bower-

bird is reported to be an excellent mimic,

producing calls of other species and even

some human sounds to enhance his court-

ship, just as he gathers materials from sources

outside himself to build and decorate his

bower.

Hopefully in this case there will be successful

breeding; but it is not known how soon it

is likely to be. In the wild each male maintains

and frequents his bower from May to

September, and consequently it may be

several months before both birds reach the

peak of stimulation and breeding readiness.

Meanwhile, however, their activities should

become increasingly exciting for visitors to

watch. Males in the wild have been observed

to show some aggression towards females

shortly after copulation; and, since the

female nests alone in the wild, it will probably

be necessary to separate the pair after

copulation and the beginning of nest-building

by the female are observed.

ZONES

Mammals

Sable Antelope Born

A female sable antelope (Hippotragus niger)

was born on December 5th (number 3e on

map), the first of this species to be born at

the Zoo since April, 1972. The calf was born

quickly and was able to stand soon after birth;

in this species it is usually able to do so after

ten minutes. However, it did not regularly

follow its mother during its early life. As in

many antelope, young of this species are left

In concealment by their mothers for the first

The Zoo’s sable antelope calf with its mother at the age of about

one month (number 3e on map).

two or three weeks, and the mother visits

her offspring only to nurse it.

This behavior serves to protect both mother

and young. The calf does not have to keep up

with the herd, and the mother is freed from

the encumbrance of a calf in times of danger.

In the wild, mother sable antelope are

reported to visit their young to nurse them

only under cover of darkness, and thus the

hiding-place is less likely to be revealed toa

predator. Finally while the calf is in hiding

it is unable to urinate or defecate without

the stimulation of licking by the mother;

thus no odors are left that might attract a

predator.

Sable antelope are found in a belt across

southern Africa extending from the Transvaal

to extreme southeastern Kenya in the east

and to Angola in the west; they inhabit

meadows with scattered trees, brush forest,

and fringe forests along rivers. They form

herds which contain a number of adult

females and their young and a single fully

adult bull; young bulls that are unable to

obtain herds of females are apparently

usually solitary, but may occasionally form

small groups. In the wild sable antelope are

crepuscular in their activity pattern, grazing

in the early morning and evening and resting

through the hottest part of the day.

The long, curved horns are present in both

sexes; and, unlike most antelope, in which

the horns are used almost exclusively in

ritual combats with conspecifics or as social

signals, sable antelope, especially large bulls,

readily defend themselves against predators

with their horns. The Zoo’s calf at present

lacks horns; they will first appear as tiny

buds at the age of about two months and

will grow very slowly over the next two-and-

a half to three years. The calf is pale brown

in color, with a short mane of blackish hair

along the neck and back. By the time her

horns have reached full size she will have

fully assumed the “‘sable”’ coloring for which

this species—considered by many the most

beautiful of the antelope—is named.

Indian Rhinoceros Born

On the afternoon of January 30th, the Zoo’s

female Indian rhinoceros (Rhinoceros

unicornis) gave birth to her first offspring,

a male. This long-awaited birth represented

only the second time that an Indian

rhinoceros has given birth in the United

States; and, if the calf is raised successfully,

it will be the first time that this has

happened in this country. The birth took

place while this magazine was in press, and

further details on the birth and on the calf’s

progress will be provided in the March/

April issue.

The Indian rhinoceros is a rare and

endangered species, of which only about

550 have been estimated to exist in the

wild in India and Nepal; there are at

present about 50 in the world’s zoos. Con-

tinued successes in captive breeding may

eventually provide animals for reintro-

duction into future preserves created from

portions of the species’ former range in

which it is no longer found.

Birds

White-Headed Piping Guans

One of the most interesting of recent

acquisitions at the Bird House (number 5

on map) is a pair of white-headed piping

guans (Aburria pipile cumanensis), large

arboreal birds of the South American

forests; the pair is located in cage 12 to

the left of the scarlet ibis cage on the rear

wall of the building. This particular form

occurs in the Guianas, in Venezuela, in

northwestern Brazil, and in eastern

Ecuador and Peru; other subspecies of

the same species are found on Trinidad

and in the Amazon basin.

The white-headed piping guan belongs

to the family Cracidae of the order

Galliformes or gallinaceous birds—the

order that includes the domestic chicken,

pheasants, turkeys, and partridges. The

cracids, known as curassows, chachalacas,

and guans, occur only in tropical and

subtropical America and differ from the

more familiar members of the order in

their arboreal habits. Their perching ability

is readily apparent, and it will be noticed

that their hind toes are long and strong

compared with those of terrestrial pheasants

and partridges. It is believed that the cracids

represent a primitive galliform stock that

has never evolved in a terrestrial direction.

White-headed piping guans are gregarious

outside of breeding season, forming flocks

that usually number five to ten. They form

monogamous, evidently territorial pairs to

breed, and the male advertises his possession

of a territory by means of a series of whistles

ascending in pitch—the piping for which the

species is named. The male also displays by

producing a whirring sound with his wings;

the outer feathers of the wing, which are the

largest and strongest of the flight feathers in

most birds, in this species have markedly

attenuated and curved tips that produce the

sound.

Their nests are evidently built very high in

the trees and have rarely been seen, and

there do not seem to be any records of this

species having bred in captivity; but the

Zoo’s female has already begun carrying nest

materials to the nest platform provided for

the birds. The chicks resemble those of the

more familiar gallinacious birds in that they

are quite precocial. They are able to perch on

a branch as soon as they hatch and are almost

immediately able to follow their parents

through the trees. They are able to flutter

short distances at the age of only three or

four days. Both parents feed them, storing

palm fruit or other soft food in their throats

and bringing it to the young. The parents do

not seem to point out food to the young in

the familiar manner of domestic chickens and

pheasants, and the chicks learn to gather their

own food more gradually.

None of the cracids seem to reproduce until

two years old, and each pair seems to produce

only one clutch of two or three young a year.

This makes for a low rate of reproduction in

comparison to the more terrestrial members of

the order, which have evolved first-year

breeding and large or multiple clutches in

response to the naturally higher predation

that their choice of habitat entails. Conse-

quently, when the cracids are subjected to

White-headed piping guan at the Bird House

(number 5 on map).

uncontrolled hunting by man, as many species

are, they are soon in danger of extermination.

The widespread destruction of tropical

American forests is a further factor in

making precarious the survival of virtually

the entire family.

White-Quilled Black Bustards

A pair of white-quilled black bustards

(Afrotis afra afroides) have recently been

added to the sacred ibis cage at the Bird

House (number 5 on map). The male is a

striking bird with an orange bill; a black

face, throat, and underside; white patches

behind the eyes and at each side of the

throat; and a short, black backward-

directed crest. His wings and back are

covered with brown and white markings, as

is the female’s entire body. This is one of

three races of the little black bustard or

black korhaan. Once common throughout

South Africa, it has apparently greatly

declined in numbers, and its range has

decreased substantially. It is still numerous,

however, in Orange Free State, the south

central Transvaal, and in parts of the Cape

Province and Lesotho. The main factor in

its decline has doubtless been the spread

of the human population and consequent

destruction of the bird’s habitat; but it

also seems at one time to have been hunted

rather extensively as a “game bird’’—a fate

that has befallen many of the bustards but

a curious circumstance in this case, since

virtually every author that writes about the

black korhaan mentions that its flesh is

inedible.

The bustards (family Otididae)—also

represented at the National Zoo by the

kori bustard (Ardeotis kori) in an outdoor

enclosure (number 6p on map)—belong to

the same order as the crane family, members

of which the bustards resemble in their

possession of long, strong legs. They are

swift runners and mainly terrestrial, although

when they do fly their flight is powerful.

The male white-quilled black bustard is

famous for his display flight, which culmi-

nates in a sailing head-first descent with

the yellow legs outstretched. Males also

frequently displav by standing on termite

hills or in other conspicuous places and

calling loudly; this display is evidently used

by each male to advertise his and his

mate’s possession of a breeding territory.

This species appears in a wide range of

habitats. It is most commonly found in

Open country with some shrubs or other

scattered vegetation, but it can also at times

be found on grasslands, in sand dunes, or

on abandoned farmland. It has been

reported to feed largely on vegetable

matter, but it is also known to capture

insects and insect larvae.

Schalow’s Touracos

New in the indoor flight room at the Bird

House (number 5 on map) are a pair of

green crested birds known as Schalow’s

touracos (7auraco schalowi/). This is a forest

bird of central Africa, belonging to a

family that includes two other species at

the Zoo—the red-crested touraco (Tauraco

erythrolophus), also located in the indoor

flight room, and the white-cheeked touraco

Tauraco /eucotis) in the great flight cage

number 4 on map). This family

(Musophagidae), which is related to the

cuckoos, is confined to Africa, and its

members are remarkable for a number of

reasons.

All of the touracos are highly arboreal;

they tend to fly little and rely on scurrying

along branches and then hopping to the

next branch. Indeed one author suggested

that their ‘movements in the tree are much

more those of a squirrel than a bird.’ Their

feet are remarkably adapted for either

perching or running and jumping. In most

birds three toes face forward and one

backward; in the parrots and some others

two toes face forward and two backward.

The touraco’s outer toe is movable so that

it can adopt at will either of these

arrangements; it can hold the toes in

opposed pairs to grip a branch when it

is perching or is climbing up a steep branch

and can then move the outer toe forward

to run along a horizontal branch or to

jump.

Schalow’s touraco -builds a loose and flimsy

platform of twigs on which to lay its two

white eggs. When the young hatch, they

are covered with thick grey down and—

remarkably—have a single claw on each

wing. The wings of birds were evolved

from limbs on the digits of which claws

were present, but in adult birds such claws

are lost and have been for millions of

years. But the young of touracos, long

before they can fly are able to leave the

nest and scamper along branches; and they

use the claws to aid them in moving

through the trees. Schalow’s touraco

parents, exclusively feeders on fruits and

berries themselves, swallow the pulp of

fruits and regurgitate it to feed their

young, continuing to feed them after they

have left the nest but are still unable to

fly.

A deep, camouflaging green is the dominant

color in the plumage of many touracos,

including Schalow’s touraco and the red-

crested touraco. This green is the product

of a chemical pigment known as turacover-

din, synthesized by the bird from minerals

and other ingredients in its food, which is

found nowhere else in the animal kingdom.

Surprisingly, another unique pigment—a

copper compound known as turacin—is also

found only in touracos. Turacin forms the

deep red color of the flight. feathers of the

wing that is so conspicuous when one of

the touracos in the Bird House is in flight.

JA 3 OMAP

SCOMANODOO PWN =

Connecticut Avenue pedestrian entrance

Connecticut Avenue vehicular entrance

Deer and antelope areas (a-j)

. Great Flight Cage

Bird House

Pheasant and crane line (a-u)

. Raptor cages (a-d)

. Delicate-hoofed stock building (a-c)

. Hardy-hoofed stock complex (a-i)

. Panda House (a-c)

. Elephant House

. Water birds (a-e)

. Hawks and owls (a-c)

. Black Rhinoceros Yard

. Small Mammal Building

. Lesser Pandas

. Prairie dogs

. Bears and monkeys (a-m)

. Reptile House

. Tortoise yard

. Monkey House

. Hardy Animals (a-o)

. Lion House

. Komodo Dragon

. Bears (a-}j)

. Water animals (a-e)

27. Sea Lion pool mm Telephone

28. Wolves, foxes, and wild dogs (a-l)

29. Monkey cages (a-b) PS Q Aaetroame

30. Waterfowl ponds (a-d)

31. Police Station—Restrooms—First Aid . o ;

ee >< Trackless Train Stops

33. Picnic Area

34. Window Shop ele Parking

35. Souvenir Kiosk ae

36. Rock Creek Parkway entrance

37. Friends of the National Z00 Offices ___ . Walking Tour Route

38. FONZ Education, Editorial, and Tour (From the Trackless Train

Guide Offices Stations)

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Connecticut Avenue pedestrian entrance

Connecticut Avenue vehicular entrance

Deer and antelope areas (a-})

Great Flight Cage

Bird House

Pheasant and crane line (a-u)

. Raptor cages (a-d)

. Delicate-hoofed stock building (a-c)

. Hardy-hoofed stock complex (a-i)

. Panda House (a-c)

. Elephant House

. Water birds (a-e)

. Hawks and owls (a-c)

. Black Rhinoceros Yard

. Small Mammal Building

. Lesser Pandas

. Prairie dogs

. Bears and monkeys (a-m)

. Reptile House

. Tortoise yard

. Monkey House

. Hardy Animals (a-o)

. Lion House

. Komodo Dragon

| Bears la)

. Water animals (a-e)

. 9ea Lion pool

. Wolves, foxes, and wild dogs (a-l)

. Monkey cages (a-b)

. Waterfowl ponds (a-d)

. Police Station—Restrooms—First Aid

. Restaurant |

. Picnic Area

. Window Shop

. Souvenir Kiosk

. Rock Creek Parkway entrance

. Friends of the National Zoo Offices

. FONZ Education, Editorial, and Tour

Guide Offices

Telephone

Restrooms

Trackless Train Stops

Parking

Walking Tour Route

(From the Trackless Train

stations)

Reptiles and

Amphibians

The Reptile House (number 19 on map) has

acquired three Chinese giant salamanders.

This is a close relative of the Japanese giant

salamander, a single specimen of which has

been in the collection since 1963. Some

authorities have classified these two sala-

manders as belonging to the same species,

Andrias japonicus, while others have

considered the Chinese giant salamander a

separate species, Andrias davidianus, named

for Pére Armand David, the missionary and

naturalist that first made known to the West

a number of Chinese animals, including the

giant panda.

The giant salamanders are the largest

living amphibians. Japanese giant salamanders

are reported to reach a length of over five

feet; according to one account, the Chinese

form does not grow so long, reaching a

maximum of about three-and-a-half feet.

The Zoo’s Japanese giant salamander is

about 30 inches long, and its new Chinese

giant salamanders are about the same length.

The giant salamanders belong to a family (the

Cryptobranchidae) that includes only one

other living species, the hellbender

(Cryptobranchus alleganiensis) of the

eastern United States; it also is a large

salamander, growing to a length of 29 inches.

The discontinuous distribution of the family

reflects its antiquity, and it was once more

widespread. A species of the same genus as

the giant salamanders lived in the Miocene

of Europe, some 12 million years ago. When

first described in 1726, a fossil of this

extinct salamander was given the name

“Homo diluvii testis,’’ or, “man, a witness

of the Deluge.”’

The giant salamanders, like the hellbender,

are wholly aquatic. They are described as

semi-larval; in other words, as adults they

retain some features characteristic of the

aquatic larvae of amphibians. The most

readily apparent of these is that they lack

eyelids, as do the larvae of all salamanders.

Eyelids, also absent from the fishes from

which amphibians evolved, are one of the

early amphibians’ original adaptations to

life on land—which we and most of their

other terrestrial descendants have retained;

they serve to protect the eyes in a way that

is not necessary in an aquatic environment.

Adult giant salamanders lose the gills

they have as larvae. The giant salamanders

have lungs and must surface occasionally

to breathe; however, there are numerous:

blood vessels in the skin through which

the salamander can obtain oxygen from

the water.

The Chinese giant salamander feeds on fish,

worms, and other salamanders. It lies in

wait on river bottoms, aided in concealment

by the extreme flatness of its head and body,

and seizes its prey with a quick sideways

movement of the head. Its numerous eggs

are laid in long strings and are fertilized

outside the female’s body by the male.

European brown bear (number 25a on map).

The bears are a remarkably homogeneous

family of mammals. It has often been

remarked that, while some species that are not

bears—most notably the giant panda—are

sometimes mistaken for bears, no one is

likely to take any member of the bear family

for anything but a bear. Such telltale

characteristics as the vestigial tail, the erect,

rounded ears, and the flat-footed, shambling

gait are found in every bear from an Alaskan

brown bear, which weighs up to nearly 1750

pounds, to a 160 pound fully adult Malay

sun bear.

There are seven living species of bear (family

Ursidae), native to every continent but Africa,

Australia, and Antarctica; six of these are

represented in the National Zoo’s collection.

The most familiar species are doubtless the

American black bear (Ursus americanus) and

the brown bear (Ursus arctos). The former

was once found in virtually every forested

area from Mexico northward, and it survives

in isolated regions over much of this range.

It is particularly common under protection

in the National Parks. Individuals of this

species may be black, brown, cinnamon,

golden brown, or even, in certain areas,

bluish or white. The last mentioned is

extremely rare; white individuals seem to

make a sizable percentage of the population

only on Gribbel Island, British Columbia.

Throughout the species a number of

different color phases may occur in a single

litter.

The brown bear, the black bear’s closest

living relative, occurs in the Northern Hemi-

sphere in both the Old and New Worlds. The

brown bear is represented in the Zoo’s

collection by both the European brown bear

and the great Alaskan brown bear or Kodiak

bear (numbers 25a and 25c-d on map,

respectively). In heavily settled areas such as

western Europe it remains only as a relict in

a few wild places. In North America the best

known members of this species, the grizzlies,

have been widely extirpated south of Canada

and Alaska, occurring in the western United

States only in Idaho, Montana, Wyoming,

Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico. This species

varies in size and appearance both from

population to population and within

populations; originally some one hundred

species of brown bears, were named, all of

which are now included in Ursus arctos.

The polar bear (7halarctos maritimus,

number 25f-g on map) is a close relative of the

brown bear and has perhaps evolved relatively

recently in geological terms from the brown

bear’s immediate progenitor. One possible

clue to a close relationship between the species

is the successful breeding of fertile hybrids,

as has been done at the National Zoo (number

25e on map). The polar bear seems to differ

from the brown bear mainly in ways that

can be seen as rapidly evolved adaptations

to its environment—the ice floes and frigid

ocean of the circumpolar zone. Unlike those

of the brown bears, for instance, the soles of

the polar bear’s feet are fully haired, thus

providing protection against the cold and

traction on slippery ice. The polar bear’s

longer neck seems to be an adaptation for

swimming long distances from ice floe to ice

floe, enabling the animal more easily to keep

its head above water. There is also a slight

webbing between the polar bear’s toes.

The teeth of the brown bears, most of which

are highly vegetarian, show a large number of

ridges for crushing plant food. These ridges

have been reduced in the polar bears, nor do

they seem to have developed in its immediate

ancestors to the extent that they have in

present-day brown bears. For the polar bear

is the only one of the contemporary bears

that is largely carnivorous, feeding mainly on

seals and fish; and the absence of plant-

crushing ridges brings into prominence the

flesh-cutting cusps present on the teeth of

the predatory ancestors of all bears.

Finally the Zoo’s collection includes three

Species of less familiar and rather atypical

bears: the spectacled bear (7remarctos

ornatus) of South America (number 256 on.

the map), the sloth bear (Me/ursus ursinus)

of India and Ceylon (number 18d-e on map),

and the Malay sun bear of Southeast Asia,

Sumatra, and Borneo (number 18b-c on map).

The spectacled bear—so named for its rather

Irregular facial markings—is native to the

Andean region; it is now rare or absent

except in the most inaccessible heights of

Peru and Bolivia. This species is the most

primitive of living bears and the one that

Stands apart most markedly from all the

others. Members of its genus were once found

in much of North and South America; fossils

have been discovered in such diverse localities

as Florida, Texas, Pennsylvania, and Argentina.

It appears that the first members of

Tremarctos were present in North America

about 10 million years ago, having either

migrated here across the then-existing

Alaskan land bridge or evolved from a

more primitive form that had itself been an

earlier immigrant. During the Pleistocene,

however, some 600,000 years ago, the bears

of the genus Ursus invaded North America

in their turn from an Old World center of

distribution. They soon displaced the

Tremarctos bears in North America, and

genus survived only in its isolated Andean

range.

Only two living species of bear have succeeded

in adapting to truly tropical climates; the

spectacled bear, despite its equatorial range,

Kodiak bear (number 25c-d on map).

is found in the comparatively cool climates of

altitudes up to 10,000 feet. Both the sloth

bear and the sun bear are tropical species and

are highly arboreal, with relatively small

bodies and long powerful claws. The exact

history of each one’s evolution is poorly

known, and insufficient fossil materials have

been found to trace their relationships with

the other living and fossil bears. The sloth

bear, presumably so named for the habit of

hanging upside down from stout branches in

a sloth-like fashion, is most readily distin-

guished by its shaggy, long coat. The sun

bear, smallest of living bears, is named for

the white or yellow “rising sun’”’ marking

that adorns its chest.

It is now fairly well established that the

Hybrid between polar and brown bears (number 25e on map).

bears evolved from early members of the dog

family or Canidae. Both families—like all

modern members of the order to which they

belong, the Carnivora or carnivores—are

descendants of a group of mammals known

as miacids, which were small, somewhat

weasel-like forest-dwelling predators that

appeared in the early Tertiary period about

65 million years ago. The dogs were an off-

shoot of this stock that first appeared about

30 million years later and diverged rapidly

to people the entire Northern Hemisphere.

The dogs were adapted to running in pursuit

of prey on the ground and had lost most or

all tree-climbing ability; however, their

teeth show that, like the miacids themselves

and like modern members of the dog family

they were adapted to a diet that included

not only flesh but substantial amounts of

vegetable food. The bears appear to have

evolved in response to a way of life that

included less active predation and conse-

‘quently a still higher percentage of

vegetable food. Indeed bears—except for the

polar bear—are among the least carnivorous

of the carnivores.

Unlike the dogs, which walk on their toes,

bears walk on much of the sole of both

front feet and hind feet—a means of

locomotion that reflects the bears’ lack of

reliance on running down prey. Their larger

size in comparison with that of their ancestors

probably evolved mainly as a protection

against predators of other species. Bears have

extremely powerful forepaws and long,

‘Strong claws; dogs’ claws are short and blunt

to provide traction in running, but the bear

uses its forepaws for a wide variety of tasks.

The claws may be used to strip bark off

trees or logs in searching for insects, to

excavate anthills or rodent burrows, or to

tear open a hollow trunk in which a bees’

nest is located. One slap of the forepaw is

sufficient to kill a bird or small mammal;

a bear wading in a shallow stream may catch

a fish one-handed and hurl it to the shore.

The claws are valuable in climbing,

particularly in the smaller, more arboreal

Species; and the shoulder architecture Is

such that it enables the bear to hoist its

weight up a tree-trunk.

The one generalization that can safely be

made about the feeding habits of bears is that

they are opportunistic and unspecialized.

Bears are adapted to feed on a wide variety

of items and to switch their diets from one

Staple to another depending on what is

available in quantity. In the temperate and

subarctic climates inhabited by the black and

brown bears there is often a regular seasonal

progression of available foods, and the bears

will alter their habits accordingly. Studies

of the brown bears of the Kamchatka

Peninsula in Siberia illustrate such a pro-

gression, similar to the one found among the

grizzlies and Kodiak bears of the American

Northwest.

The Kamchatkan brown bears first emerge

from their winter dens about mid-April.

Snow is still on the ground, the bears are

groggy from their long sleep, and at first

they travel little from the neighborhood

of their dens and do not feed at all. When

they do begin to feed a major item in their

The long claws of the sloth bear are adapted to a variety of tasks,

including tearing open termite nests and aiding the bear in climbing.

diet is willow catkins, all of which may be

stripped from a bush by a single bear. When

the snows have melted and the vegetation

of early spring and summer appears, the

bears live largely by grazing on grasses and

herbaceous plants. At this time the diet is

varied with rodents such as voles which are

dug from their burrows or flushed from

underbrush.

Then in the summer the salmon begin their

spawning runs up rivers and creeks, the banks

of which are soon lined with bears, fishing

in the shallows and by falls. The Alaskan

brown bears congregate at salmon runs in

a similar manner, and the ordinarily solitary

bears have been found at such times to have

a fairly clearcut social hierarchy. Near the

mouth of the McNeil River it was found that

large males could displace any other bears

at valued fishing sites; next came females

with young, then smaller males and females

without cubs. There is a minimum of violence

among the bears, and dominant bears drive

off subordinate bears by means of such

signals as roaring, standing stiff-legged or

twisting the head sideways.

A fishing bear may wade into the water and

catch a fish with its mouth or with its paw,

and it may lie in ambush some time for

passing fish with most of its body concealed

beneath the surface. At one Kamchatkan

lake, bears were observed swimming out to

a certain spot, diving, and returning to shore

with fish. It was discovered that at that spot

were springs issuing from the lake bottom

where salmon aggregated in large numbers.

When fish are plentiful brown bears and black

bears usually do not eat the whole fish, but

when fish are scarce the whole fish is

devoured. When feeding at heavy spawning

runs, bears may eat only females—then

carrying the protein-rich eggs—or press the

eggs out and eat them only.

Salmon is the chief food of the Kamchatkan

bear in summer, but in August the bears leave

the stream banks to feed on the now-ripe

berries. In autumn berries and seeds—

particularly pine seeds—constitute the greater

part of their diet; and it is on these foods

that they build up the fat reserves on which

they will have to subsist throughout the

winter denning period. Bears have been seen

standing on their hind legs before dwarf

pine bushes, holding the branches down by

means of their forepaws, separating the seeds

from the scales of the cones with their teeth,

and spitting the scales out of each side of

the mouth.

The diets of temperate-zone bears may vary

from year to year as well as from season to

season, and a food source that is unusually

abundant one year may be heavily exploited.

Black bears in Pennsylvania, in a fall when

beech nuts were abundant, fed mainly on

them, whereas in other years their fall diet

was much more varied. In a summer when

crickets and grasshoppers were present in the

Yellowstone Park region in plague numbers,

so high that their dead bodies made roads

slippery, black and grizzly bears lived on

them almost to the exclusion of every other

food.

One mystery of Western entomology was

solved by observing the food sources used

by bears. Army cutworm moths are present

in large flights in the spring; but the females

Sloth bear (number 18d-e on map). The photograph at right shows

the protrusible lips and nostrils closable at will that enable this species

to blow with great force when clearing away dirt from a termite nest.

Kodiak bear (Ursus arctos middendorffi).

have undeveloped ovaries, and no breeding

takes place. Then, in summer, the species

seemed to disappear; a few were found

estivating, but their numbers did not seem

sufficient to account for the reappearance

of the species in breeding flights in the fall.

The possibility that there were two

generations of adults each summer—as |

occurs in, for example, mayflies—was ruled

out by the female’s spring condition. It was

‘later found, however, that in summer the

moths were fed on extensively by bears

high in the mountains, where they evidently

gather from much of the surrounding lower-

altitude areas to wait out the summer under

comparatively cool temperatures.

The food habits of tropical bears are less

known than those of their northern relatives.

Sun bears have been reported to feed on bees’

wax and honey, the soft growing points of

the coconut palm, junglefowl, rodents, and

fruit. The sun bear may dig up a termite

colony and, placing each of its forepaws into

the nest in turn, raise it to its mouth to lick

the termites off; or it may lick up the termites

directly with its very long tongue. The sloth

bear is quite remarkably adapted for feeding

on the same sort of insect, with highly mobile

and protrusible lips and a long tongue. After

breaking open a termite mound with its

claws, the bear has been reported to protrude

its lips and blow away loose dirt from around

the hole; it lacks the front pair of incisors

and thus can blow with considerable force.

The tongue can then be protruded through

this gap to lick up insects directly.

The sloth bear also feeds extensively on such

other foods as fruit and honey and may

occasionally scavenge at abandoned tiger kills.

The diet of the spectacled bear has been

studied less than that of any other member of

the family; indeed very little is known about

any aspect of this species’ life in the wild. It

has been said to be the most vegetarian of

the bears. Its jaws form a highly developed

crushing apparatus—similar, in fact, to that

of the giant panda. It is reported to feed

extensively on palm nuts—a food which

evidently requires as much crushing power

as tough bamboo stalks require on the part

of the giant panda.

As is well known, the bears of temperate

climates regularly spend the winter in a state

of torpor in a protected den; the bear does

not eat during this time and lives entirely on

stored fat. In the polar bear it is often asserted

that only pregnant females den up, and

tropical bears are active year round.

The bear’s state, it has been pointed out, is

not one of ‘‘true’’ hibernation, since the bear

can be roused and may spontaneously awaken

on warm days; such truly hibernating

mammals as some ground squirrels (C/te//us)

assume a continuously comatose condition.

Moreover the bear’s body temperature is

not lowered to anywhere near the extent

that a truly hibernating mammal’s is. Ina

study of two captive black bears and one

captive grizzly, radio transmitters were

implanted in the bears’ bodies by means of |

which scientists could make readings of the

bears’ heart rates and body temperatures.

The bears were induced to enter a state of

dormancy by being given large amounts of

food in the autumn, then provided with

denning facilities and deprived of all food.

(That the Zoo’s black and brown bears are

active in winter is due to the fact that they

are neither given the excess of food in

autumn they would need to build up fat

reserves nor are they deprived of food in

winter.)

In this study it was at no time found that

the bears’ body temperatures were greatly

reduced in winter dormancy; the greatest

reduction was only about seven degrees

Fahrenheit. In the arctic ground squirrel,

on the other hand, which has a body

temperature of 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit in

ordinary summer sleep, the body temperature

is reduced to 39.2 degrees Fahrenheit in

hibernation. In heart rate, however, the bears

showed much greater reduction than in body

temperature. In the arctic ground squirrel

the normal summer sleeping heart rate is

about 150 beats per minute; it is lowered

in hibernation to only about seven beats

per minute—a reduction of 96 percent.

In the black bear it was found that

the normal sleeping heart rate was 40 to

70 beats per minute. This may be reduced

in winter dormancy to only 10 beats per

minute. However, in bears it was found

that the reduction in heart rate was not

constant. The bear’s heart rate would usually

speed up to approximately the normal

summer sleeping rate once a day around

noon. In the rodent, on the other hand,

the heartbeat remains depressed for periods

ranging between 4 and 28 days ata

stretch. Only once in the study did a bear

not show a daily increase in heartbeat, when

one of the experimental animals’ heart rate

remained low for three consecutive days.

The cubs of polar, brown, and black bears

are born when the mother is in the winter

den. Blind, hairless, and extremely small,

they have no activities outside of sleeping

and nursing; the mother’s milk is produced

from the same stored fat on which she herself

is surviving. Each of these three species of

bear mates in spring or early summer;

evidently this is an advantageous time because

the bears have not travelled as far from the

winter dens as they will later in the summer,

and thus it is easier for the solitary males and

females to find one another. The young are

not born until considerably later, in deep

winter. In the American black bear, mating

takes place in late June and early July, and

the cubs are born in late January or early

February. Of the reproductive habits of

the spectacled bear, sloth bear, and sun

bear, little that is reliable has been recorded.

The period between conception and birth in

the polar, brown, and black bears is

surprisingly long, considering the undeveloped

state of the young at birth. The reason is

that the recently fertilized ovum enters a state

of suspended development during which it is

- not implanted in the uterus. Finally—after

about five months—the embryo resumes its

development until ready for birth, which takes

place only about eight weeks later in the

American black bear. This process of arrested

development serves to time both mating and

birth at the optimum seasons. And the

undeveloped state of the young—provided for

by their unusually brief gestation—is to their

advantage, as it prevents them from wander-

ing from their dormant mother. The young

leave the den with the mother and remain

with her two years; thus female bears mate

only every other year in the wild. This long

period spent with the mother resembles that