Every day can hold a new surprise with our live animals. When I am cleaning raptor enclosures, checking on the snakes, or feeding frogs, I often find some kind of mystery. This week held two head-scratching discoveries. Can you guess what they are?
In the first photo, a perfectly round hole had been excavated in aspen bedding. I quickly realized that this hole was one of Digger's tunnels. Aptly named for one of her favorite hobbies, the hognose snake's characteristic upturned snout acts like a shovel that can excavate burrows in loose substrate. In the wild, Digger would use this skill to seek out buried frogs and toads, a favorite meal.
The object in the second photo was more curious. Extremely lightweight and tissue papery to the touch, this was a rare find. I pulled it out of Scuba's bedding and tried to flatten out the folds, but the thin material was dry and broke easily. It reminded me of the crusty membrane that the tree frogs leave on their habitat windows. This was salamander skin! Amphibians shed their skin regularly, just like reptiles, except Scuba the salamander has much thinner skin than our scaly snakes. We rarely see his shed skin because we suspect that he usually eats the skin as it comes off, a common habit in amphibians.
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