Pancake Tortoise

Species: Pancake Tortoise
Habitat: Scrubs/Savanna of East Africa
Status: Vulnerable
DAK Locale: Pangani Forest Trail

This tortoise has a very flat and flexible shell which make it look like a pancake. It lives in the rocky outcroppings of Tanzania and Kenya. The shell allows it to squeeze in amongst the rocks for shelter from both predators and the heat of the sun. It is native to southern Kenya and northern Tanzania, but there is also an introduced population in Zimbabwe.

The animal lives in isolated colonies amongst the kopjes of its home. These rocky outcroppings are similar to the lion exhibit of the Kilimanjaro Safaris and dot the landscape of the east African. Males will fight over females during the breeding season which is typically in January and February. Females lay one egg in a sand nest near the colony which is a slow reproductive rate for tortoises and contributes to it being listed as a Vulnerable species.

The pancake tortoise is surprisingly fast and get back to its crevice to avoid potential predators. Their flexible shell allows them to move deep into the kopje. They are most active in the early morning and early evening hours to avoid the heat of the sun. Their diet is mostly grass and other vegetation.

The unusual appearance of the animal makes it popular not just in zoos but also private collections. That along with habitat destruction has left the animal vulnerable to being endangered according to the IUCN. Both countries where it lives, however, are taking action to help their populations. It is illegal to export them from Kenya and Tanzania is actively protecting them including within the confines of its world renowned Serengeti National Park.

Siamang

Species: Siamang
Habitat: Rain forests
Status: Endangered
DAK Locale: Asia

The Siamang is the largest of all gibbons. Like all gibbons, the siamang is a lesser ape. Standing at the exhibit, located between Expedition Everest and Kali River Rapids, you will often overhear people calling the siamangs "monkeys." They are wrong, and there is one sure fire way to tell. Apes do not have tails.

Unlike the great apes, siamangs do not build nests. They sleep upright in the trees. In fact, the animals spend almost all of their life in the trees. And like all gibbons, siamangs are experts at brachiation. They swing through the trees at amazing speeds and few animals can match their agility in moving through the dense jungle vegetation. Their very long arms allow them to swing up to 10 feet at a time. All gibbons also have an opposable big toe which helps in brachiation, as well.

A siamang is also well known for noise. The calls can heard in the jungle for up to 2 miles, which is quite a bit in a dense forest. They can sometimes be heard on the other side of the Animal Kingdom. If at the exhibit when the calls happen, you will see a large throat sac, helping the siamang be the loudest of all gibbons. The calls are used mostly to establish territory in a forest where often rival groups cannot be seen. Interestingly, mated pairs create their own unique songs.

Mated pairs often stay together for life. The family consists of the pair and two or three offspring who are born several years apart. The father essentially takes over the care of the offspring after a year which is very unusual for primates. The children often leave the family group between ages 5 and 7.  They live up to 40 years of age.

The siamang is found in the jungles of Malaysia and Indonesia. They are endangered. Although poaching can be a problem, this biggest issue is deforestation from logging and expansion of farmland, especially for palm oil and coffee.

White Rhinoceros

Species: White Rhinoceros
Habitat: Grasslands of Southern Africa
Status: Endangered
DAK Locale: Savannah East/Kilimanjaro Safari

There are several different species of rhino found in Asia and Africa. The White Rhino is found at the Kilimanjaro Safari Ride – Savannah East. You will notice that the white rhino is one of the largest land mammals weighing in at nearly 4500 lbs., which is larger than its cousin, the Black rhino, also found at the attraction. Males are significantly larger than females but both sexes have the signature two horns. The white rhino got its name from a misinterpretation of an Afrikaans word for “wide”, referring to the white rhino’s broad lip.

The rhino is famous on the safari circuit for being nearsighted, even occasionally charging jeeps that they mistake for other rhinos. The black rhino, the culprit behind these “attacks”, is the more aggressive species. The white rhino is much more docile and approachable. To see in front of themselves, they must look one eye at a time. A rhino’s olfactory passage is larger than their brains.

Rhinos are either grazers or browsers. As a grazer, the white rhino eats grasses and the like. They are often accompanied by oxpeckers, a bird that eats the insects off their skin. This symbiotic relationship is beneficial for both critters. Also, the rhino lacks sweat glands. This requires them to spend a lot of time in mud wallows to stay out of the heat and cool off.

The rhino reproduces at a very slow rate, a complicating factor in the efforts to save the species. White rhino females reproduce every 3 to 4 years giving birth to (generally) only one young after a 17 month gestation period. Rhinos across the world have been hunted to near extinction. Their horns are used for ceremonial daggers and is ground up into a powder for an aphrodisiac in China. Poachers often hack up off the horn leaving the rest of the carcass on the savannah. Currently, there are probably less than 15,000 white rhinos. The population worldwide has decreased about 90% since 1970 due to habitat loss and poaching. There are 2 populations of the white rhino, the northern and southern. Unfortunately, the northern subspecies found in the Congo nows numbers a mere 4 animals virtually guaranteeing its eventual extinction.

African Elephant

Species: African Elephant
Habitat: Sub-Sahara Africa
Status: Endangered
DAK Locale: Kilimanjaro Safari

Elephants are one of the most popular zoo animals and the largest land mammal on Earth. These highly intelligent behemoths are unusual and impressive in appearance yet are seemingly gentle. Of course, what the public does not realize is that elephants kill or injure more zookeepers than any other animal. This stems from their incredible strength more than any real aggression. Plus, elephants require more hands-on care by the keepers than just about any other type of critter. The massive African bulls are the most aggressive and can weigh up to 6 tons, with females topping the scales at about 4 tons.

One of the most frequently asked questions about elephants is whats the difference between the African and Asian types. The Africans are much larger with significantly bigger ears. There is a smaller forest type of the African species but at Disney's Animal Kingdom we see the savannah kind. Elephants in general use their large ears as fans, but they also contain numerous blood vessels close to the skin to help the cooling process. The distinctive trunk is used for breathing, smelling and as an extra limb which can grab food with its nimble end. The animals have 4 useful teeth which are huge and grooved. These can only be replaced 6 times in their lives and many an old animal dies from starvation after losing its last set. This usually occurs around the 70th year. The famous tusks (unlike Asian elephants, both males and females have tusks in Africa) are actually incisor teeth.

The most endearing quality of the elephants is its family life, at least among the females. These groups are matriarchal, meaning a group is lead by the dominant female. The rest of the herd is comprised of other females and the young. Bulls are driven away once they reach puberty and live on thier own or in a bachelor herd until they get their own group. Males join herds only briefly to breed. Females reach maturity at about 14 years of age and give birth after a 22 month gestational period, that is, their pregancy lasts nearly 2 years. No wonder the boys take off (Just kidding). The calf is about 250 pounds at birth and will suckle for up to 2 years. A female gives birth every 4 years or so and usually has 3 or 4 young with her at any given time.

The family members stay in constant contact with one another. In fact, at the Bronx Zoo, it was recently discovered that the 2 separate groups were consistently calling one another at other ends of the 250+ acre park. These calls were too low for the human ear to pick up. However, we can sometimes hear elephants call one another in a low gargling noise.

The famed legend of the elephant graveyard comes from the behavior of elephants greiving over the loss of a family member. Elephants have been known to bury their dead with leaves and twigs- a behavior only shared by man. The herd will sometimes spend days at the corpse of a dead elephant often touching and caressing the body. This was first recorded by the Roman writer, Pliny. In fact, it has been shown that elephants once back at the site of a long dead family member may caress the bones left behind. This may also account for its legendary memory in folklore.

Elephants eat a lot. The diet consists of a large variety of grasses, foliage, fruit and twigs. They eat all day and night. They can digest as much as 500 pounds of vegetation a day and can drink as much as 40 gallons of water at a time. Despite this, man has long domesticated the animals. The first domesticated elephants appear in accounts in India around 5500 BC. In fact, elephants have always played an important role in that culture's unique mythology.

As we all know, the elephant is highly endangered. Hunting has been banned but, as Little Red can tell you, poaching is still a major problem, especially with the price of ivory being so high. Gamekeepers are now heavily armed in order to protect the herds from even heavier armed poachers. In Kenya alone, the population dropped from 150,000 to 30,000 in 10 years. During the 1980s, it is estimated that nearly half of Africa's 1.2 million elephants were killed almost exclusively by poachers.

Komodo Dragon

Species: Komodo Monitor
Habitat: Indonesia
Status: Vulnerable
DAK Locale: Maharajah Jungle Trek

The Komodo Dragon, or Monitor, is the largest species of lizard on Earth. They are found only on the Indonesian island of Komodo as well as some neighboring islands. In rare instances, they can grow to be 10 feet long and weigh 150 pounds. The critters at the Animal Kingdom are not in that size range. It is believed that monitors have evolved to that size as there are no other land carnivores, such as tigers, on these isolated islands. They are considered an example of island gigantism.

Komodos like all lizrds are cold-blooded, meaning they cannot control thier body tempature, but instead rely on the outside environment. As such, they are more active during the day. They are carnivores with a diet mostly consisting of carrion. At times, several animals may find the same dead carcass which typicall results in a pecking order of feeding, with the biggest, healthiest animals goinf first. It does, also, hunt, using thier sense of smell and smell stimuli to hunt. Komodos are ambusher, a rarity in the lizard world. Komodos in the wild often carry sepsis causing bacteria in thier saliva, but at the Animal Kingdom, that is not true, due to the cleaner diet, so you can thank the keepers for that.

Female komodos lay about 20 eggs in a clutch which are left in a nest burrowed into the ground by the mother. The life of a young komodo is dangerous, many become prey often from older komodos. It is believed that young komodos make up to 10% of an adult komodos diet. As a result, yound dragons spent much of thier time in trees unlike the adults who are ground dwellers.

It is believed there are less than 5000 komodo dragons in the wild, with about half living on the island of Komodo. The biggest concern for the species is loss of habitat as well as tourism. Poaching is also a big concern. It is believed that dragons no longer exist on the island of Padu, with the last sighting of the lizard in 1975.

Giant Anteater

Species: Giant Anteater
Habitat: Central and South America
Status: Threatened
DAK Locale: The Oasis

The giant anteater is a solitary creature that spends much of its day searching for its favorite meal, ants (what a shock, right?). It is the largest of the 4 anteater species and the only that spends its time on the ground. The other species are all arboreal. It is also the most widespread kind of anteater as its found in Central America through the jungles of the Amazon and throughout most of the South American continent. It can be found in rainforests, grasslands, forests, and the more arid regions.

The animal hunts using its incredible hearing and sense of smell which is 40 times more powerful than man's. The diet is low calorie, but the animals have adapted to this by keeping a body temperature of only 32 to 35 degrees Fahrenheit. They will range over a territory of 1/2 to 1 square mile depending on the abundance of food. After a day of foraging, the anteater will sleep in a dirt hollow or burrow dug up by its massive claws, which are also used to dig out ant colonies or defend themselves against jaguars and other predators. At their enclosure in the Oasis, the animals are often found sleeping perhaps even out of view.

The anteater's tongue can extend downward into an ants' nest. The tongue is covered in tiny spines with a sticky substance making it virtually impossible for the ants to escape. The animal, despite this diet, is relatively large weighing up to 90 pounds. In captivity, it can live over 20 years. Mothers will give birth to one young which the mother will carry on her back until its able to walk.

Gray Kangaroo

Species: Gray Kangaroo
Habitat: Eastern Australia & Tasmania
Status: Not Endangered
DAK Locale: The Tree of Life Gardens

The gray kangaroo lives in the grasslands and open woodlands of eastern Australia. It can also be found on the island of Tasmania. It grazes on grass and various plant species in the early morning and at night to avoid the often brutal heat. Grays can survive on the poor quality of grass and, in fact, eat much less than their competitors, farmers' sheep. During the heat of the day, the kangaroos will stay in the shade or lie down in holes dug up to get to the cooler dirt below the surface.

Gray kangaroos are very sociable living in groups called mobs. A mob generally consists of a dominant male, several females of breeding age and their young, and two or three younger males. However, many mobs gather together amicably while feeding. The female leaves the mob to give birth. A single joey is born about a month into the pregnancy. This 1 inch, less than a pound baby will crawl into the pouch where it may stay for another 300 days or so. In fact, no marsupial keeps their young in their pouches longer. Early naturalists thought that joeys grew directly from the mother's teat.

A gray kangaroo can jump as far as 44 feet. However, it most often travels slowly on all fours. The famous bounce only occurs when the animal is alarmed and needs to expend energy to get away. And it has a lot of endurance. One gray kangaroo was chased for 19 miles and then it swam another two miles before the chase was given up. Prior to bouncing away, the animal will alert its mob mates to the danger by smacking its tail loudly. The grays have a good sense of smell and vision to keep alert. More importantly, its large ears are flexible allowing the kangaroo to hear things coming from nearly any direction.

Gray kangaroos are big, reaching five feet in height and weighing up to 200 pounds. Although its larger cousin, the red kangaroo, is more numerous, the grays do number about 1.5 million in their territory. Still, farmers employ various techniques against the gray kangaroo who they feel use up too much of the grazing land for sheep. Farmers have built large fences to keep the animals out, but most grays are capable of bounding over the fences that were constructed. Shootings occur often. Plus, the gray kangaroo, like the American deer, cause many accidents in Australia by leaping out onto highways and oncoming traffic.

Bengal Tigers

Species: Bengal Tiger
Habitat: South Asia
Status: Endangered
DAK Locale: Maharajah Jungle Trek

The Bengal Tiger is one of the most distinguishable animals at any zoo with its reddish gold and black stripes. Yet, in a deep forest or amongst a reed bed, it’s well camouflaged. The tiger is generally a solitary animal and doesn't like to share territory. At a zoo such as Disney's Animal Kingdom, however, family members can be kept in the same enclosures safely. In the wild, males only stay with breeding females for 20 to 80 days. Mothers keep cubs around for 2 to 3 years.

Bengals hunt almost exclusively at night. They are powerful and quick only over short distances. They use their camouflage to get close to prey. They tend to kill small animals by breaking their necks, but larger animals require them to bite throats. A tiger can eat the equivalent of 30 buffaloes a year and will eat as much as 65 pounds of meat a night. For some reason, they always eat the hindquarters first.

Currently, the Bengal Tiger is most numerous in the mangrove forests of eastern India, but they can be found elsewhere in the country as well as in Burma and Nepal. They require large tracts of land with single males occupying as much as 20 square miles and females using 17 square miles. Males are also significantly larger than females. They can be as long as 9 feet from nose to tip of tail and can weigh as much as 570 pounds.

Habitat destruction is a major problem in the growing nation of India as is overhunting. In 1900, the tiger population of that country was between 40,000 and 50,000. It dropped to a mere 1850 in 1972. Now, the tiger has rebounded to about 4000 animals in India. In zoos, the tiger is being kept from breeding as the capacity to house the animals is reaching the limit.

Tigers rarely attack humans. In India, the myth of maneaters is probably overblown. Yet, it is true that an occasional animal will develop a "taste" for humans. Plus, the massive amount of people in India most likely contributes to the fact that approximately 3 dozen people are killed and eaten annually by tigers.

As you imagine, the tiger in that region is a strong part of folklore and mythology. Its reclusive nature has made them less associated with royalty which is the role often played by the lion. Still, it is often given supreme supernatural power. The Hindu goddess, Durga, rides into battle astride a massive tiger. Shamans in Malaysia feel they can shapeshift into tigers to protect the tribe. The mystical king of tigers, Raja Yah is said to inhabit the center of the World.

Silverback Gorillas

Species: Silverback Gorilla
Habitat: Eastern Central Africa
Status: Endangered
DAK Locale: Pangani Forest Exploration Trail

For many years, the common perception of the gorilla was that of King Kong- a massive, vicious man-like monster of the deep jungle. Yet now, thanks to Diane Fossey, "Gorillas in the Mist", channels like Animal Planet, and exhibits like that at Disney's Animal Kingdom, we are beginning to see the gorilla for what it really is- a gentle close relative of the human. To watch a gorilla go about its day can be engrossing and perhaps even unsettling as many of its actions are so familiar.

Gorillas live in family groups consisting of a silverback male, breeding females, and the young. These animals are highly social and can often be seen grooming one another in an effort to bond within the group. Each evening the band settles down in nests made of leaves. These nests are either on the ground or in the trees depending on the region. Often a researcher's first clue that gorillas are nearby is the discovery of a fresh set of nests.

The impressive male gorilla, the silverback, gets its name from - you guessed it- the silvered hair growing on the upper portion of his back. He's also distinguished by his size (perhaps more than twice the size of the females) and the bony ridge on his head that creates a dome-shaped look. All gorillas have human like thumbs that are opposable assisting in gripping and climbing. Females produce one offspring and raise them for three years or more. Young adult males eventually move out on their own living solitary lives until they establish their own troop on their own territory, which is often small. Gorillas eat only vegetation-no meat. They are especially fond of bamboo shoots, ferns, and wild celery.

The image of the ferocious gorilla stems from its reaction to outside threats, most notably a Silverback’s reaction to another grown male. They will scream and pound their chests king kong style. This display is often enhanced by charging nosily through the thick jungle foliage. The silverbacks will occasionally have fierce fights with males looking to take over their group.

The picture we have now is that of a gentle giant who sits calmly by while scientists and tourists mingle with the group. This has allowed a great deal of study of the gorillas as well as bonding basically unheard of with any other animals. Yet, the gorilla faces extinction head on. The gorilla has been hunted for bushmeat for centuries. Its hands are sold as ashtrays. But, of course, the biggest problem is deforestation as well as the added threat of trying to live in an area dominated by civil war and politcal upheaval. The mountain gorilla which may number less than 500 lives only in the Virunga Volcanoes region the Congo. The Western lowland subspecies, the kind most often seen in zoos including Disney's Animal Kingdom, lives in the lowland watershed regions of the Zaire and Ubangi rivers. The total population of all three gorilla subspecies (the eastern lowland being the third) is less than 50,000.

At the Animal Kingdom, the gorillas are divided into three distinct troops. One troop located near the swaying bridge is made of older animals. Another area contains the bachelor group. Finally, in the research camp, the visitor will see Gino, the silverback, with two females and perhaps even some young.