Penny and Max

The other day I had the pleasure of watching Penny the Honduran Milksnake in one of Zoo Atlanta's animal shows. I am now in the process of training to become an animal handler and I got to the chance to meet Penny during one of my classes. Penny is non-venemous and she is extremely pretty.

Honduran Milksnakes come from the low to medium tropical elevations of Honduras, Nicaragua, and the northeastern part of Costa Rica. This particular snake is a constricter. They are an opportunistic eater, eating rodents, birds, eggs lizards, and sometimes other snakes (including ones that are venemous). They have a base color of red with distinct black or yellow rings. In some cases the yellow is actually an orange color and the snake is referred to as a tangerine phase. It is considered one of the largest species of milknsnake with individuals having been known to reach up to 48 inches in the wild and up to 5 feet in some captive cases. The Honduran Milksnake is very similar in appearance to the Coral snake (this is called Betasian mimicry) which helps it to deter predators.

The Honduran Milksnake becomes sexually mature at around eighteen months. They are egg layers, laying about 18 eggs per clutch. Incubation lasts about 2 months with the hatchlings being about 8 inches long and are darker in color to their parents when they emerge from the eggs.

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Another animal I have had the pleasure of encountering is Max the prehensile-tailed porcupine. I got to watch him show off his stuff in the same show as Penny on Saturday and needless to say I think he really enjoyed being outside. In fact he enjoyed being outside so much that it was very hard to get him to go back in! Zoo Atlanta uses positive reinforcement when training their animals to show off certain behaviors on command so when Max finally did decide to come down, he got himself a nice little treat.

The prehensile-tailed porcupine has really sharp spines, a big round nose, and a tail they can use to grab onto branches which also allows them to hang upside down when they need to. They are nocturnal, vegetarian, rodents. They have short, thick spines and the color of their body ranges from a sort of yellowish color (like Max) to orange-rush to brown to black. They can weigh from 4 to 11 lbs. Like howler monkeys, the prehensile-tailed porcupine can use its tail for grasping and hanging. Their tails have no spine and the upper part of the tail near the end has a callus pad.


Their habitat is the forest ranges of Venezuela, Guiana, Brazil, Bolivia, Paraguay, Trinidad, and some extreme northern sections of Argentina. Their diet consists of leaves, flowers, shoots, roots, and the canbium layer found underneath the bark of some trees. They are a nocturnal animal (which means they are active only during the nighttime hours). They can be found in small groups during sleep-times but are mostly solitary or paired. Normally, they sleep in the upper canopy of the trees, but they have also been known to rest on lower limbs, and in hollow trunks and lower burrows.

In the wild the prehensile-tailed porcupine is a pretty tough little creature. They have been known to hit and bite those who try to attack or try to capture them. They stamp their feet when they get excited and curl up into a ball when they get caught. They also sit on their haunches, shake their spines, and emit loud growls and high pitched cries.

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A Myth About Porcupines...

There is a popular myth out there that says porcupines can actually show their spines out like barbs. NOT TRUE! No porcupine has ever had the ability to do this. If a predator happens to get entangled with a porcupine what usually happens is the porcupine will actually back up really fast and their spines will stick into the predators skin (getting pulled loose in the process). This is a very painful experience for the predator and it tends to leave them thinking twice the next time they encounter a porcupine.

(It should be noted that the two photos that are posted on this blog are not actually Penny and Max, but photos that I found off of the Internet.)

Thanks for reading!

-Zoogirl