Eeeww!

This adolescent male monitor was found on a street in nearby Goleta, far from his native range in South and Southeast Asia. He is believed to be an escaped pet, but was never claimed. Keepers are accustoming him to being handled, and perhaps to even wear a harness for walks.

Their distinctive hiss emanates not from their mouths, but from “spiracles,” which are small holes in their abdomens used for breathing. These cockroaches live in large colonies and hiss when threatened by predators to sound an alarm for the colony, or during fights between males.

This lizard’s armored-looking back resembles that of a caiman alligator, thus the common name. A South American native, they have muscular jaws and strong teeth for cracking the shells of their favorite food: freshwater snails.

The Zoo’s two species of tarantula both have colorful names: pink zebra beauty tarantula and Chilean rose hair tarantula.

The Zoo recently had a milky tree frog baby boom (more like a tadpole boom) with more than 100 hatched. We kept a bunch and sent some to AZA facilities in Houston and Nebraska. But don’t touch – frogs’ skin can absorb hand lotion and other substances from your hands, potentially causing them harm.

Poison dart frogs get their name because indigenous people of Central and South America use their toxin secretions to poison the tips of blow darts.  While bright coloration warns potential predators of their toxic nature, many species of dart frog are actually minimally poisonous.

Mattie, the Zoo’s Eastern diamondback rattlesnake, has the distinct dark diamond pattern that the species’ name suggests. She’s 4.5 feet long and around 8 pounds, which is small for the species. Keepers say she is intense and defensive, which is typical of the breed. “She’d prefer to be left alone 100 percent of the time,” reports one keeper.

Southern Pacific rattlers vary widely in coloration. Rico, who lives in Rattlesnake Canyon, is black (“melanian” in snake parlance) with an orange pattern on his back. This species also can be silver, gray, brown, olive, or even greenish; all have dark-rimmed spots on their backs. Rico is “relatively calm and easy to work with,” according to keepers.

Taylor’s cantil (black moccasin), a cousin of the U.S. cottonmouth, is found only in northeastern Mexico. Their hinged fangs lie flat against the jaw until they swing forward during a strike. Keepers note that this female snake is always alert and quite cautious, but can be unpredictable.

The false water cobra is named for its ability to flatten its neck to appear larger, which makes it look like a cobra. But the false water cobra does not rear up vertically and tends to stay close to the ground. Their fangs are in the back of their mouths, and they chew their prey to inject the toxins. “He’s a patient assassin who explodes onto his food, hitting it intensely,” say keepers of this 7-foot-long male snake.