I spent the morning on the computer working on the ID's for the new native species rockpool display in Bug World - our invertebrate house. It won't be quite a straightforward job for several reasons. First I have to wait for the Animal Department Registrar, Alice, who keeps all the animal records and Mark, the Assistant Curator of Invertebrates, to sort out the scientific names for some of the species.
The animal record list is done through a universal record database used by the zoos in the UK and sometimes it is a little slow getting updated with any changes to scientific names. It's surprising how one species can be referred to by not only different common names but also, when classification changes are made, by different scientific names. Obviously there is a wish to have the animal info as up to date as possible on our ID signage... but the dilemma is that if the animal records show one version and the keepers give me another I have to go with the former (as hopefully will others in the zoo) otherwise it gets confusing. In the past there have been incidents where an animal ID gives one name, the annual report gives another and the keepers use yet another. Unless you are really in the know it can lead to one species being thought of as two because the names being used are different. To keep everyone 'on the same page' it was decided a year or so ago that the animal record list managed by Alice would be the definitive and everyone should defer to that. So Alice and Mark need to go through the species list for the rockpool and decide on the names.. and change the records list (if poss) to update info if necessary.
Secondly I shall also need from Mark the type of food each species eats. i.e. whether it eats plants, animals or rotting stuff. There are symbols for each category that I can place with each species on the ID.
And thirdly... because of the nature of the display, it has been decided that photo's should be used on the ID signs. Problem is getting these photo's. By its nature the rockpool is made up of rocks and stones and so has many nooks and crannies and the species by their nature of being secretive and retiring hide for most of the time. Getting photos of these animals, without taking the rock display apart (which is not going to happen) is going to be pretty impossible and any success of seeing and photographing one is going to be down more to luck. There are, of course, photos on the internet, so why don't we use them? Well, using images from the internet is fraught with problems and our main concern is copyright issues. We can't just take images off the internet and use them in our signage as most photographers, like artists, have automatic copyright over their intellectual property...i.e. their photos.
So it is going to be a case of gradually building up the photos of the species as and when I see and photograph them successfully within the display. There will be species I'm sure I will never get a photograph of... In time, the switch over to painted illustrations could be made, depending on the longevity of the display itself.
Just before lunch I popped across to Twilight World (our nocturnal house) to remove a spare ID board that is not needed at present in the forest area. It was a quick job of unscrewing two screws and lifting the wooden board off.
After lunch I went on a walkabout in the zoo, cleaning grafitti and scuff marks off of ID signs and interpretation panels. We have some 'anti-grafitti wipes', these are strong non-solvent based wipes that will shift most marks and to protect my hands I wear latex gloves when using them. But I have to take a supply of the gloves as the solvent soon 'melts' and breaks through the thin rubber. Strong stuff!
It was very busy and as I walked around the zoo I could see kids running around with ice creams, looking for the golden eggs and marking found ones off in their maps. Great fun. Though I was asked where the eggs were by children a few times, I couldn't help as I had no idea where they were all hidden.... but I did see the dinosaur egg on one of the lake islands, a crack in the shell as if it was about to hatch.
The dinosaur footprints (that I drew the template for last week) were across the lawn but I didn't get to see them, too many people. Maybe tomorrow.
Whilst out, I checked the Forest of Birds (tropical aviary in the centre of the zoo) for tatty signs... I didn't have time to go in last week during my 'Sweep'. There are a few IDs to replace so I made a note of the species and headed back to the studio after finishing the sign cleaning.
The last half of the afternoon was printing the 14 bird ID replacements and two copies of the Goeldi's monkey (Callimico goeldii) ID. One of the mammal keepers had stoppped me and let me know a visitor had spotted a spelling mistake on the Goeldi's ID, so that needed correcting and reprinting.
Goeldi's monkey are cute little primates from South America, this is the illustration I did of them some years ago. They are just a little bigger than a squirrel and have a coat that looks like it has been cut badly with scissors - the long dark fur falls as if in chunks. On my walkabout I had stopped to watch our family group of six, for a few minutes. They were in twos, grooming each other and chatting with their bird like high pitched trill whistles in the indoor part of their enclosure. Such wonderful little critters they are a delight to watch for a while... their big brown eyes watching for everything with great curiousity. After I had stood for a few minutes watching, one came over and sat on a branch close to the wire and watched me back. I wonder what thoughts were going on in its mind?
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