Smithsonian Science » veterinary medicine

Howler monkey born at National Zoo

John Barrat — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 10:26:59 +0000

Spring is in full swing at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo, and the Small Mammal House—which celebrated the birth of a black howler monkey (Alouatta caraya) March 22—is no exception. Since then, keepers have been monitoring the family at a distance, allowing first-time parents Chula (mother) and Pele (father) to bond with their baby.

The pair has exhibited strong parental skills and the young primate seems bright, alert, and increases its activity and independence day by day. This is the first surviving howler monkey in the Zoo’s history of exhibiting the animal. Its sex has not yet been determined. Zoo visitors can see the howler family on exhibit in the Small Mammal House.

Their thick necks house a unique voice box, including an enlarged hyoid bone, that enables male howler monkeys to penetrate three miles of dense forest with a single rumbling growl. These booming territorial calls have earned the primates, which are native to Central and South America, the title of loudest animal in the New World (North, Central and South America). The International Union for Conservation of Nature lists the black howler monkey as least concern.

Photos by Clyde Nishimura (top) and Janice Sveda, Smithsonian’s National Zoo

Why did the tortoise cross the road? A recent study indicates few do.

John Barrat — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 12:29:07 +0000

Scientists studying genetic variation and gene flow in a population of tortoises (Gopherus agassizii) in California’s Mojave Desert, were surprised recently to discover that two roads built in the desert in the 1970s had a noticeable impact on the population’s genetic structure. Tortoise pairs from the same side of the roads exhibited significantly less genetic differentiation than pairs from opposite sides of the roads, the scientists report in a recent paper in the journal PLoS ONE. The study was a fine-scale local genetic analysis of the population, rather than a broad, regional scale, which is more commonly done.

Image left: A desert tortoise, Gopherus agassizii. (Image by Mike Jones, courtesy Encyclopedia of Life)

“Roads are barriers to dispersal for lots of species and usually it takes many generations to show up in the genetic structure of an animal,” says one of the paper’s co-authors Emily Latch, a postdoctoral researcher at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute’s Center for Conservation and Evolutionary Genetics, and now an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. “Because tortoises have such a long life span, we didn’t think the roads would influence their genetic structure so quickly, but they did.”

The study shows for the first time that recent landscape features such as roads “can have rapid effects on the genetic structure of a localized population and are detectible almost immediately,” in as little as one generation, the scientists report. As a result, the scientists conclude, “Roads may become increasingly important in shaping the evolutionary trajectory of desert tortoise populations.”

For the study, DNA samples were taken from 859 tortoises living in an area of 23,969 acres. “A huge number of samples,” for such a small area, Latch says. Data also was taken on each animal’s sex, location, and location elevation and slope.

Image right: A tortoise in the Mojave Desert. (Image courtesy Wikipedia)

The tortoises were sampled as part of a tortoise relocation effort at Fort Irwin Army Training Center and the animals were located by having people walk map transects in the desert. They picked-up, labeled and took data and DNA samples for every tortoise encountered.

“The adult individuals were initially genotyped to develop a baseline genetic database of translocated and resident tortoises so that family groups hatched after the translocations could be identified to particular parents, and the reproductive success of translocated and resident tortoises compared,” says Smithsonian geneticist Rob Fleischer, head of the Center for Conservation and Evolutionary Genetics and senior author on the paper. “This is important to determine if translocation is really an effective mitigation step. It was serendipity that led to our finding a surprising level of genetic structure.”

Roads may inhibit gene flow in desert tortoises by the reptiles being hit by cars, picked up by travelers, and predation and disease associated with pets released by the roadside. Eroded banks and increased vegetation along desert roads also may provide places for the tortoises to burrow and forage for food, causing them to move along a road rather than to cross it.

The article “Fine-Scale Analysis Reveals Cryptic Landscape Genetic Structure in Desert Tortoises,” by Emily K. Latch, William I. Boarman, Andrew Walde, and Robert C. Fleischerappeared recently in the journal PLoS ONE.

-John Barrat

Why did the tortoise cross the road? A recent study indicates few do.

John Barrat — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 05:05:28 +0000

Image left: A desert tortoise, Gopherus agassizii. (Image by Mike Jones, courtesy Encyclopedia of Life)

Image right: A tortoise in the Mojave Desert. (Image courtesy Wikipedia)

-John Barrat

Smithsonian scientists help build first frozen repository of Great Barrier Reef coral

John Barrat — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 13:48:03 +0000

Springtime in Australia means balmier weather, but the Great Barrier Reef’s future may depend on subzero temperatures. Researchers from the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute, Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology and other partnering organizations spent two weeks at the end of November collecting sperm and embryonic cells during spawning from two species of coral and have built the first frozen repository for the Great Barrier Reef that could someday restore a coral species or diversify a population.

Image right: Smithsonian scientists Mary Hagedorn and Ginnie Carter freeze coral sperm in a lab on Oahu, Hawaii. (Photo by Mike Henley)

“It turns out we can produce significant numbers of developing larvae using the thawed sperm and that those larvae actually settle,” said Mary Hagedorn, a marine biologist at SCBI. Coral settling is the process in which a free-swimming, bowling pin-shaped coral larva metamorphoses into a single polyp baby coral. “This is a huge milestone for us because if the larvae couldn’t metamorphose and settle, we wouldn’t be able to successfully use the bank for conservation efforts, which is the driving force behind this important research.”

Image left: Larvae of the coral Acropora tenuis. (Photo courtesy A. Hayward and A. Negri, Australian Institute of Marine Science)

The new frozen bank includes two reef-building species of coral, Acropora tenuis and A. millepora, both of which now reside in long-term storage at the Taronga Western Plains Zoo in Dubbo, Australia. Hagedorn has already successfully applied this technology to reefs in the Caribbean and Hawaii. Though they remain alive, the banked cells are in a stasis and researchers can thaw the frozen material in one, 50 or, in theory, even 1,000 years from now. Done properly over time, researchers can rear samples of frozen material and, if necessary, place them back into ecosystems to infuse new genes into natural populations, helping to enhance the health and viability of wild stocks. The work is the result of a partnership between SCBI, Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology, Taronga Conservation Society Australia, Australian Institute of Marine Science and Monash University.

Image right: The Great Barrier Reef coral Acropora tenuis spawning. (Photo courtesy A. Hayward and A. Negri, Australian Institute of Marine Science)

Coral reefs are living, dynamic ecosystems that provide invaluable services: they act as nursery grounds for marine fish and invertebrates, provide natural storm barriers for coastlines, store carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and are potential sources for undiscovered pharmaceuticals. Yet coral reefs are disappearing rapidly because of pollution from industrial waste, sewage, chemicals, oil spills, fertilizers, runoff and sedimentation from land; climate change; acidification; and destructive fishing practices. Researchers believe that coral reefs and the marine creatures that rely on them may die off within the next 50 to 100 years, causing the first global extinction of a worldwide ecosystem since prehistoric times. According to the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, coral reefs generate up to $30 billion of the global economy each year, with more than $1 billion going to the Australian economy. The Great Barrier Reef, which stretches 1,800 miles along the Queensland coast of Australia, includes the world’s largest collection of corals.

Image left: Smithsonian staff member Mike Henley working with frozen coral. (Photo courtesy Mike Henley)

“The wildlife on the Great Barrier Reef is so fascinating, and the size and beauty of that reef is legendary,” said Mike Henley, an animal keeper in the Zoo’s Invertebrate Exhibit. Henley helped collect and freeze the Australian samples. (Read Henley’s update from the field on the Zoo’s website.) “Our colleagues at the Australian Institute of Marine Science were so very wonderful to work with, and their facility is state-of-the-art, making research and larval care easier than at any location I have ever worked before.”

While scientists have successfully used frozen sperm from coral to fertilize fresh coral eggs, their next focus is on developing techniques to use frozen coral embryonic cells to help restore coral populations. In January, Hagedorn and her collaborators will focus on culturing frozen embryonic cells to see how long they can live.

“Right now there are no tools to help address some of the diseases most devastating to the reef,” Hagedorn said. “If we can grow embryonic cells and keep them alive, this technology could be important in battling those coral diseases.”

First Eld’s deer born from in vitro fertilization with help of Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute scientists

John Barrat — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 20:20:58 +0000

Nearly 20 years after the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute became the first to produce an Eld’s deer fawn through artificial insemination, SCBI scientists have now contributed to the birth of the first Eld’s deer via in vitro fertilization. The researchers collected eggs, inseminated them in vitro with thawed semen to produce embryos and transferred the embryos to a surrogate mother. A resulting fawn was born Oct. 17 at the Khao Kheow Open Zoo in Thailand.

“This gives us another important tool to help maintain genetic diversity among Eld’s deer populations under human care,” said Pierre Comizzoli, a reproductive physiologist at SCBI’s Center for Species Survival. Comizzoli oversaw the surgical procedures (laparoscopy) that resulted in the fawn and has helped train researchers in Thailand to perform in vitro fertilization. “Maintaining the genetic diversity of the population under human care is important to build up a healthy and sustainable population of animals that can be released into the wild.”

SCBI has a long history of training reproductive researchers and veterinarians working with Eld’s deer and developing scientific innovations to help conserve the species, which is considered endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. There are less than 1,500 animals left in the wild as the result of habitat loss and hunting. Thailand’s Zoological Park Organization, which announced the news of the Eld’s deer fawn in a ceremony at Khao Kheow Open Zoo today, maintains a successful Eld’s deer captive breeding and reintroduction program. ZPO has worked with SCBI and AgResearch of New Zealand on in vitro fertilization and embryo transfer techniques for several years. Two Eld’s deer fawns were born through this method in 2010, but both died within 24 hours of their birth. This year’s successful birth was the result of one of eight embryo transfers performed in February 2011.

Lion cub summer school: Instead of learning their ABCs, the National Zoo’s lion cubs are learning behaviors that will help animal care staff evaluate their health.

John Barrat — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 13:44:51 +0000

School's nearly back in session, but the seven young lions at the Smithsonian's National Zoo have been working hard through the summer months! Instead of learning their ABCs, they're learning behaviors that help animal care staff evaluate their health, including opening their mouth, showing their paws, getting up on a bench and laying down in practice to receive a vaccination. We've been tracking their achievements—and adorable blunders—on camera. They're certainly earning their meatballs and we think you'll be impressed by their progress. According to their teachers, keepers Rebecca Stites and Kristen Clark, all seven lions earn the same grade for effort: A+ Related posts:

New finding may enable scientists to bolster genetic diversity of captive cheetah population

John Barrat — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 14:39:19 +0000

Researchers at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute have discovered why older females are rarely able to reproduce—and hope to use this information to introduce vital new genes into the pool. SCBI scientists and collaborating researchers analyzed hormones, eggs and the uteri of 34 cheetahs at eight institutions, and determined that while the hormones and eggs of cheetahs older than 8 years appear normal, the animals’ uterine tracks tend to suffer from abnormal cell growth, infections and cysts that prevent pregnancy.

Image right: The National Zoo’s female cheetah Armani (Photo by Mehgan Murphy)

“Those of us who work with cheetahs have anecdotally noted that it’s hard to reproduce older cheetahs, but this is the first time anyone has documented how aging affects the physiology of reproduction in this species,” said Adrienne Crosier, SCBI cheetah biologist and lead author of the study in which these results were published. “We were relieved to find that, unlike in other older mammals, the eggs in older cheetahs can produce viable-appearing and growing embryos, which means we may be able to transfer them to younger cheetahs and preserve genetic diversity. If we had found that the eggs were abnormal, we were facing losing genes in an already depleted population.”

The researchers’ findings were published in a paper titled Increasing Age Influences Uterine Integrity, But Not Ovarian Function or Oocyte Quality, in the Cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus) in the online version of the Biology of Reproduction in May and in final form this month. According to the study, approximately 80 percent of adult female cheetahs in North American institutions have never reproduced and the death rate for cheetahs has exceeded the birth rate in 13 of the last 16 years. Lack of genetics can lead to cub mortality and lower cheetahs’ resistance to disease.

Image left and bottom: The National Zoo’s female cheetah Zazi (Photos by Jessie Cohen)

The next step for SCBI researchers is to extract eggs from a cheetah older than 8 years that has not reproduced and to fertilize the eggs and transfer them to a younger female. Crosier estimates that SCBI will try an embryo transfer within the next two years and said that if it works, it is feasible that someday researchers could do this with wild cheetahs to continue to infuse the population in human care with new genes.

Paper co-author, Pierre Comizzoli, a vertebrate cryobiologist at SCBI, has been collecting and freezing immature eggs and ovarian tissues from felids for the SCBI’s Genome Resource Bank, a frozen repository of biological materials that includes sperm and embryos, tissues, blood products and DNA. Researchers are currently able to produce embryos from fresh eggs, but aim to do the same with frozen eggs.

“The work on freezing eggs and ovarian tissues will offer yet another option to preserve the fertility of females, especially long after they are dead,” Comizzoli said. “These approaches also allow us to to boost the number of offspring that can be produced from a single individual.”

SCBI is one of five centers participating in research to boost the cheetah population in human care as part of the Conservation Centers for Species Survival, also known as C2S2. All five centers collectively manage more than 25,000 acres of land devoted to the survival of threatened species with special needs (including those requiring large land areas, natural group sizes and minimal public disturbance). All five centers maintain a cheetah breeding facility as part of their long-term commitment to cheetah breeding and research. The Smithsonian’s National Zoo’s Front Royal facility currently houses 10 adult cheetahs and seven cubs. The National Zoo houses three adults.

Cheetahs, the fastest animals on land, are struggling to outpace threats to their survival in the wild. As the result of human conflict, hunting and habitat loss, there are only an estimated 7,500 to 10,000 cheetahs left in the wild. The International Union for Conservation of Nature considers cheetahs a vulnerable species.

The study’s authors from the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute are Crosier, Comizzoli, David E. Wildt and JoGayle Howard. The other authors are Autumn Davidson, Tom Baker and Linda Munson from the School of Veterinary Medicine, University of California at Davis, and Laurie L. Marker from the Cheetah Conservation Fund.

Five cheetah cubs born at Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute

John Barrat — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 18:45:32 +0000

Five cheetah cubs were born May 28 to 6-year-old Amani at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute in Front Royal, Va. Amani is a dedicated mother according to keepers, who have observed her nursing and grooming the cubs.

Image right: Amani in her enclosure at the National Zoo. (Photo by Mehgan Murphy)

This litter is particularly significant to the Association of Zoos and Aquariums’ Species Survival Plan for cheetahs because cheetah births in zoos across the country have dwindled. The SSP matches animals across the country to ensure genetic diversity in the population. This is the only litter of cheetahs born this year in a North American zoo.

“We are very excited that Amani had such a large litter of cubs this time,” said Adrienne Crosier, SCBI cheetah biologist. “These cubs are very significant for the future of the population, and each birth gives us an opportunity to learn more about cheetah biology and how females raise their young.”

Image left: Amani with cubs in her den at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute in Front Royal, Va.

The mortality rate for cheetah cubs in human care is 20 percent during the first six months, compared to a mortality rate of up to 70 percent in the wild population in east Africa. Keepers will continue to monitor the newborns. In addition to the litters born at SCBI in Front Royal, two litters of cheetahs have been born at the Zoo’s Washington, D.C. facility since 2004.
SCBI is one of five centers participating in research to boost the captive cheetah population as part of the Conservation Centers for Species Survival, also known as C2S2.

This is the second litter born to Amani. In December 2010 she gave birth to a male cub. Cheetahs that give birth to only one cub, called a singleton, often cannot produce enough milk to keep the cub alive. Typically, females in the wild will let a single cub die, after which they will enter estrus and breed again. So scientists at SCBI gave Amani’s male cub to another female, Zazi, who had a 5-day-old single female cub. This strategy, known as cross-fostering, has worked and Zazi is raising the two active and healthy cubs.

Damai, a two-and-a-half-year-old female Sumatran tiger, makes her debut at the National Zoo

John Barrat — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 12:09:05 +0000

The National Zoo’s great cat program recently expanded with the arrival of two-and-a-half-year-old female Sumatran tiger, Damai, who is now out of quarantine and spending time outside in her exhibit where visitors can see her. The Zoo hopes to bring a male tiger later this year to breed with Damai, as recommended by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums’ Species Survival Plan for Sumatran tigers, which matches animals across the country to ensure genetic diversity in the population.

Image right and images below: Dami the National Zoo’s new Sumatran tiger. (Photos by Mehgan Murphy. Click to enlarge.)

“Every time we get a new animal, it’s a learning experience for us because each animal is different,” said Leigh Pitsko, a tiger keeper at the Zoo. “We can already tell that Damai is a great tiger. She’s sweet, very calm, and curious about everything going on around her. Visitors will really enjoy watching her and learning about her species.”

Damai’s genetics are not well represented among tigers in captivity in North America, and she is therefore a highly valued animal within the Species Survival Plan. The Plan opted to send her to the National Zoo because of its success in breeding Sumatran tigers and other cats, such as cheetahs and lions. The Zoo’s last litter of tigers was born in 2006 to female Soyono, who is 17 years old and has had three litters.

Conservationists believe there are fewer than 3,500 tigers left in the wild (and fewer than 500 Sumatran tigers), as the result of poaching and habitat loss. Not only is the Zoo helping to ensure that the North American captive population of tigers is sustainable, but the Zoo’s Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute leads the Global Tiger Initiative in partnership with the World Bank and other organizations. Tiger conservationists are meeting in Bhutan this week to develop recommendations for preserving tiger conservation landscapes in the country by looking at regional infrastructure planning tools, approaches to sustainable tourism, roads and hydropower projects. By working with wildlife officers, field managers, researchers and policymakers from tiger-range countries, the Global Tiger Initiative aims to double the number of tigers in the wild by 2022—the next year of the tiger in the Chinese zodiac calendar.

“Because the Zoo plays such a large role in the Global Tiger Initiative, we want to make sure we’re doing our part to keep a healthy captive population,” said Marie Magnuson, a tiger keeper at the Zoo. “Ultimately we hope to have cubs here again. Because tigers are so highly endangered, every tiger born is a victory.”

The Zoo is now home to three Sumatran tigers: Damai, Soyono, and Soyono’s five-year-old offspring, Guntur. Pitsko and Magnuson will be training Damai, who came from the San Diego Safari Park, to exhibit a number of behaviors that will allow the Zoo’s veterinarian team to draw blood, give injections and conduct ultrasounds without having to anesthetize her.

Wattled crane chick hatches at the National Zoo

John Barrat — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 19:21:29 +0000

On the heels of spring’s arrival, a wattled crane (Bugeranus carunculatus) chick hatched at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo March 20, the third of its kind in the park’s history. National Zoo veterinarians examined the chick and took a blood sample when it was 4 days old, which they will use to determine its sex. Visitors can see the chick and its parents at the Crane Run, part of the Bird House’s outdoor exhibits.