Tembo Trail

You are now entering the Zoo’s Tembo Trail Exhibit. To your left is a large exhibit filled halfway up with water. This is our Hippoquarium where guests can view hippos underwater. To your right is a smaller exhibit with similar underwater viewing of otters.  

As you move up the hill past these exhibits, you will find yourself outside in front of our state-of-the-art African Elephant exhibit. This includes a pool and several areas for elephants to forage for food and interact with each other. Continue up the ramp and back down again to arrive at our rhino exhibit. The path to the right leads to the indoor elephant area. The path to the left leads you to the hilly Takin exhibit. All of these exhibits provide space for our animals to find food, drink water, and explore, with many features zookeepers use to provide enrichment for them every day. 

You are now at the North American River Otter exhibit. As you approach the exhibit you may hear the sounds of running or splashing water. The viewing area is a large floor to ceiling window giving you both above and below water views. The otters often swim right up to the glass to interact with visitors.

In the water itself, there are many rocks that come in various sizes. You can also spot large branches. This mimics the habitat that the otter can be found in, rivers. Some remnants of their diet can be found here such as cracked open clams resting at the bottom of the tank.

In the back half of the enclosure, there is a large area of land where the otters can run freely and have access to their indoor space. In and out of the water are various types of enrichment for the otters. Enrichment acts as a way for the animals to have an active mind. Connected between the land area and the water is a slide the otters can go down, and depending on the day, there are objects floating in the water as well. This can be anything from a bright blue ball or a large plastic raft that is about the size of a square table top.

North American River Otters are small mammals shaped like tubes and when they are adults they will be about three to four feet long. They are often compared to beavers, but they are a lot slimmer and longer. What makes up a good majority of their body is their long tails. You can see them use their tails to propel themselves through the water. They have a dark brown, chocolate-like color that covers the top half of their body and head. Their stomach and bottom half of their face is a color similar to oatmeal. Their body is covered in brown fur, with their belly and chest being lighter brown to tan in color.  Their fur is also waterproof and very dense. This gives them the ability to stay warm on land and in the water.

Another feature that helps the otters are their long whiskers. The whiskers are a couple of inches long and they can use them to feel around in their enclosure. They also have webbed feet to help them swim. There are claws at the end of their feet that are very sharp and cannot be retracted into their body.

For our otters at the Toledo Zoo, you may find them doing a lot of different activities. Since they are semi-aquatic animals, they love to spend time in the water. Most of the time, you will be able to hear them diving into their exhibit. When they are not swimming, you can hear them running around their enclosure or see them taking a rest on land.

The last thing you might notice is on the visitor side of the exhibit. In the bottom left corner there is a black box about the size of a guitar amplifier. This box provides a livestream of the otter exhibit that can be found on the zoo’s youtube channel during zoo hours.

We hope the tour of this exhibit gave you a better understanding and curiosity of the North American River Otters. Enjoy the rest of your day at the Toledo Zoo.

You have now arrived at the hippo exhibit here at the Toledo Zoo. It is located at the beginning of the Tembo Trail area of the zoo. During the colder months, the indoor part of the enclosure might be open to the public where the hippos could be in their heated pool, or laying down on land. The outdoor portion of the exhibit is much larger and includes a land area for the hippos to lay down or eat food, and three hundred sixty thousand gallons of water that reaches eight feet deep in parts of the enclosure. Towards the middle of the viewing area, you may hear rushing water from the waterfall that delivers clean water back into the exhibit. There are four, eight thousand gallon gravel filters that will cycle all the water from the exhibit in only ninety minutes! From the exhibit the hippos can be seen underwater, a feature that when it was made was one of the first in the world.

Our exhibit is home to two adult African Nile Hippopotamuses. Female hippos can weigh up to three thousand pounds, about the size of an SUV. Male hippos can be much larger, reaching weights of well over nine thousand pounds, about the size of an ambulance. Hippos are typically brown in color. Although, they often times appear pink due to the protective slime that they secrete. This helps to protect them from the sun, similar to how we use sunscreen. Hippos are built for the water. Their ears and eyes are situated on the top of their heads so that they can see and hear while they float. Although they don’t technically swim, their blubber allows them to bounce off of rocks, logs and lake bottoms. The hippos are fed a diet of mostly hay, nutritional pellets, and will get vegetables and fruits as treats. Our hippos will often times be found resting underwater close to one another. They may slowly float to the surface to breathe, they can even do this while sleeping!

We thank you for visiting and learning about our Hippoquarium exhibit here at the Toledo Zoo. We hope you enjoy the rest of your trip down Tembo Trail!

The elephant exhibit at the Toledo Zoo is one of the larger exhibits at the Zoo, and for good reason, Elephants are the largest land mammal! This exhibit offers a variety of viewing locations and different yards for different elephants to be in. Before entering Tembo Trail there is a Bull yard viewing to the right. This large yard was built to hold adult male elephants that may often be solitary, or wanting to live alone. While it is not exclusively used for this purpose the adult male elephant is often found there. Once in the trail there is a large outdoor viewing of the other part of our exhibit that often holds our female and calf, if there is one. Beyond the outdoor exhibits, there is also indoor viewing that is used especially throughout the colder months so guests are able to experience the elephants year round.

The exhibit has extensive space with a sandy bottom, mimicking the ground found in Africa where these large creatures live. Since the elephants would most likely destroy real trees, there are large 20 foot tall metal structures jutting out of both of the outdoor exhibits. On these large metal trees, the Zookeepers are able to put food and lower it with remote controls throughout the day. Also found on each side of the outdoor exhibits are enrichment walls that give a chance for the elephants to use their trunks to find food on the other side of the wall. This keeps the elephants engaged throughout the day. Zookeepers can manipulate the ground by creating large sand piles for the elephants to play, roll around and dig for food in.

The Toledo Zoo is home to African Elephants. Male African elephants can reach up to 14,000 pounds with females being slightly smaller at 10,000 pounds. They can be between 10 and 14 feet tall. Elephants have several distinct features on their body including their large ears. These large ears can be about 4 feet tall. They serve several functions including helping to cool the elephant in the warm Africa temperatures, or Toledo Summers. The trunk is also one of the elephant’s notable features. This large and long “nose” helps the elephant with just about everything. They use it to smell, pick things up, suck up over a gallon of water to spray in their mouth, throw dirt on their backs for sun protection, and to trumpet! Their trunks boast around 40,000 muscles allowing the elephant to pick up something as small as a penny and as large as a tree trunk. The African elephant has large tusks coming out of the mouth in both the male and female elephants. These tusks are made of ivory.

Elephants often live with one another forming herds, and are matriarchal which means there is a female leader. In the wild these herds can be over 100 individuals but here at the Zoo our elephants often form smaller herds. The elephants at the Zoo also enjoy spending time with keepers through training and getting treats like sweet potatoes or watermelon. Throughout the day they may eat hundreds of pounds of food, the majority being hay.

The Toledo Zoo works hard on innovative enrichment for these large creatures because they are so incredibly smart. The keepers work with them every day on different behaviors to train as well. Often in the exhibit there will be puzzle feeders. The elephants must work to figure out how to get the food out and this keeps their brains engaged. Each visit there may be different things for the elephants to play with!

You are now approaching our Indian rhino exhibit. This is a large rocky exhibit, with a moat surrounding it. The exhibit itself is surrounded by a wooden railing with rope fencing. There are multiple spots for guests to stop and view the exhibit. The rhino exhibit has two levels. The first level features the moat and a sand covered shore with various enrichment items for the rhino to interact with, such as a large ball or a tractor tire. The second level features a grassy area and some large rocks and trees for shade. There is also an indoor viewing area at the end of the exhibit near the elephants. You may find the rhino here during the colder months.

Indian rhinos are found in grasslands and thick forests in Nepal and Northeastern India. They are also known as the greater one horned rhino. This name comes from the one horn that they have on top of their nose, as opposed to the two horns that other species of rhino have. Rhino horns are made from compacted keratin, the same material as our hair and finger nails. Touch your fingernail! It’s hard and tough like a rhino’s horn. They use them in defense and to plow the ground to look for food. They are not born with their horns, but start to develop them around 1 year of age.

Indian rhinos are covered in heavily folded, thick, grey skin, giving them an armored look. They typically weigh between 4,000-6,000lbs, that’s as much as a mini van! Despite their heavy weight, they can run up to 35mph.

These rhinos spend a lot of their time in the water and you can often find our rhino in his moat either playing with is ball, or resting so only the top of his nose is out of the water. In the wild, they spend time in pool or mud wallows to cool off and protect themselves from bugs.

Thank you for visiting our Indian rhino exhibit. We hope you enjoy the rest of your trip down Tembo Trail!

To the right is the Takin exhibit. The front of this exhibit features a moat. As you approach the railing surrounding the exhibit, you may hear the sound of bubbling water. Past the moat is a large open grassy area with some small trees and logs for the takin to climb on. Takin are large mountain-dwelling hoofstock and are rare in North American zoos. Most closely related to sheep and goats, Takin look more like cows with shaggy, pale yellow to rusty brown fur and crescent shaped, pointy horns. Male takin can weigh up to 770lbs! That’s about as much as a jet ski! Their native habitat in the Himalayan Mountains is cold, windy, and rocky. One way Takins stay warm is with their big nose! As air travels through their sinuses, it warms up before getting to their lungs. You may also hear them communicate to each other by snorting with their noses.

Takins have split hooves to help them climb frozen ground and rocky slopes. They eat throughout the day, grazing on whatever greens they find in the mountains. At the zoo, our Takin like to climb rocks, stumps, and logs in their exhibit. They eat a mix of grasses and vegetation throughout the day.

We hope you liked learning about some of our largest animals in Tembo Trail. Enjoy the rest of your day at the Toledo Zoo.