ProMedica Museum of Natural History

Well hello explorers and welcome to the Toledo Zoo’s ProMedica Museum of Natural History. The Museum is full of venomous reptiles, creepy crawly insects, slimy amphibians and ancient fish. There is so much to explore that this may take a little time to go through. Throughout the Museum’s first floor there are large life-sized models of animals past and present. The first thing you may notice upon entering is the sounds. Some of our exhibits use loud sound to transport you back to the time and habitat of an animal.

When you enter the lobby of the Museum you may notice the smell of snacks like fudge or popcorn from our concession stand. The Curio Gift Shop is located to your left, where you can purchase fun souvenirs like stuffed woolly mammoths or a Zoo shirt. To your right is the entrance to the tropical greenhouse exhibit. This exhibit is home to a variety of poison dart frogs and tropical plants. Be ready to explore all the different areas of the Museum, as each has its own story to tell. We hope you learn more about Ohio native animals as well as the often misunderstood poisonous and venomous creatures that are found here.

Our first stop is the tropical greenhouse exhibit. As you walk through the door into the greenhouse, you are quickly transported into a tropical rainforest. What makes a rainforest so neat? You may notice it is hot, humid and a little wet. Trees and other very green plants grow to the two-story top of the greenhouse, about as tall as a house. In an actual rainforest this can get much higher.

The rainforest has many cool plants, one being the bromeliads. These plants cover the forest floor or are even found on the walls of this greenhouse. They have broad, leathery leaves and bright flowers. These plants collect water in the center, where our poison dart frogs lay their eggs.

There is a path you can follow in a circle around the greenhouse to view the various plants and animals. As you start to walk the path you may notice banana plants towering up to the second story of the greenhouse. You may also hear the loud chirps and trills of the greenhouse’s most popular residents, our poison dart frogs, as they call to each other.

These small, quarter-sized, brightly colored frogs are found in the rainforests of Central and South America. Here at the Zoo you can often find them hopping across the paths or sitting on fallen leaves. The bright colors, like green, blue, orange and yellow, help to protect them by warning other animals that they are toxic. Although highly poisonous in the wild, here at the Zoo they are not. This is because their toxin is believed to come from the insects they eat. In the wild they eat insects that feed on toxic plants, but in captivity they are fed nontoxic insects such as crickets and fruit flies.

As you make your way through the greenhouse to the exit door, you will walk through two sets of doors to ensure no frogs try to follow you out. When you exit the tropical greenhouse, you will walk toward the next exhibit in the Museum, Ohio: After the Ice.

Time travel back to Ohio 13,000 years ago. Listen to the sounds of these animals and the habitat they lived in. Large life-sized models of prehistoric animals once found in Ohio are here. Some of these include Woolly mammoths, Sabertooth cats, mastodons, Cave bears, Dire wolves and Ground sloths.

Alongside these prehistoric models are mounts of animals that are still found in Ohio today, such as turkeys, raccoons, Black bears and more. To the left side of this exhibit is a large model of a glacier, a section of which is chilled to form ice on the outside. Put your hand on the ice to feel the cold glacier. While exploring this area of the Museum you may occasionally hear the sound of a stampede of mammoths and other prehistoric animals to help transport you into this time period.

Have you ever met and touched an ancient fish? Here is the rivers and streams room, home to our large Sturgeon Touch Tank. This is a large circular tank with a rock feature in the center that houses our lake sturgeon.

Lake sturgeon are prehistoric fish with shark-like tails and bony, plated armor-like coverings. They are found in rivers and lakes in the United States and Canada. Lake sturgeon are one of the largest freshwater fish in North America. They can live over 100 years and reach lengths of up to 7 feet long, about as long as a three-person couch or taller than an adult. Lake sturgeon are also very heavy fish, with adults weighing as much as a refrigerator.

They have whiskers, called barbels, in front of their mouths that help them sense food. Lake sturgeon do not have teeth but instead use their large mouths to suck up worms, crayfish, mollusks and other small animals from the bottoms of lakes and rivers.

Check out what the bottom of a stream looks like by crawling under the hellbender exhibit. This underneath view is home to our hellbender salamander. Hellbenders are large, slimy salamanders measuring almost as long as a skateboard. Hellbenders are grayish brown in color. They have flat heads, beady eyes, wrinkly skin and paddle-shaped tails. Due to their appearance they are nicknamed snot otters or lasagna lizards.

Hellbenders are fully aquatic, spending their entire lives in the water. They spend most of their time under rocks at the bottoms of rivers and streams. Hellbenders have large, gaping mouths they use to eat crayfish and fish that are almost the same size as them.

As you exit this exhibit, be sure to explore the second story of the Museum to view our venomous animal exhibits.

Did you know dragons are real and live here at the Toledo Zoo? On the second floor of the Museum is our Komodo dragon exhibit. This exhibit has large glass viewing windows and is split into two different sections for our male and female Komodo dragons. Each exhibit has rocks for the dragons to climb on and a small pool for them to wade in.

Komodo dragons are the largest lizards in the world, reaching lengths of up to 10 feet. That’s as long as a truck, though ours are not quite that long yet. Their scales are black to yellow-gray in color. Komodo dragons have very long muscular tails and large powerful claws. Their forked tongues allow them to smell or taste the air to help them find food.

Komodo dragons have 60 sharp, shark-like teeth used for cutting and tearing their food. Their bite can be deadly due to the bacteria and venom in their saliva, though it may take a few days. Komodo dragons then track down their prey using their strong sense of smell.

Now you can say that you visited a real-life dragon.

Whoa, dangerous snake alert. Explorers, it is time to get up close with some of the most venomous animals in the world. As you enter the room you will notice three large venomous snake exhibits along both the left and right sides of the room. In the center, there are tall rectangular column-like exhibits housing a rotating collection of venomous snakes.

But what is venom? Venom is a toxin that is injected, usually by bite, which makes it different from poison, which is usually touched or ingested.

The middle exhibit, as you walk through the doors to the venom room, features the most venomous snake in the world, the Inland taipan. This exhibit is tall and rectangular and can be viewed from all four sides. Inside, there is sand, dead leaves and dry sticks and logs. This exhibit is designed to replicate their native habitat in Australia where they are often found in dry soil plains, sheltering in cracks and crevices in the ground. The Inland taipan is a medium-sized snake averaging 6 feet in length, about as tall as an adult man. They have tan to yellowish-brown scales covering their bodies. Although it is considered the most venomous, it is not the deadliest. The Inland taipan is considered shy and is rarely seen in Australia where it is found.

The king of snakes, the King cobra, is in the first exhibit on the left wall of this room. This exhibit has two large glass viewing areas. King cobras live in the forests of Southeast Asia. The background of the exhibit features a painting of their native habitat. Inside the exhibit there are large bamboo stalks as well as leafy green and dried yellow bamboo plants. On the floor of the exhibit there are sticks and large logs for the cobras to hide in. In the center is a rocky pool with large logs around it. The cobras often slither through this pool.

King cobras are typically yellow, green, brown or black in color. Their throats are typically yellow or cream-colored. The king cobra can reach lengths of up to 18 feet, making it the longest venomous snake in the world. That is about as tall as a giraffe. A king cobra’s venom is strong enough to take down an elephant. Despite their large size and deadly venom, the king cobra is not considered aggressive and will avoid fights when possible. When threatened, king cobras raise themselves up, flatten their neck ribs and display their hoods. This, combined with loud hissing, often deters danger without needing to bite. In the wild, the king cobra’s diet mainly consists of lizards and snakes, but here at the Zoo they feed on mice and rats.

The next exhibit along the left side of the room is home to our Mang mountain pit vipers, named after the mountain range where they are found in China. These snakes are often found climbing branches, so the exhibit has many branches for them to use. Mang vipers are medium-sized snakes reaching up to 7 feet long. They have green and brown scales which help them blend in perfectly with their mountain forest habitat in China. They hide so well that they weren’t even discovered until 1989.

The Mang viper has a unique way of catching food. The tip of its tail is bright white and resembles a worm. It wiggles the tail to lure prey, which typically includes frogs, birds and rodents. Although venomous, they are rarely encountered by people in the wild.

What is that sound you hear? That is a rattlesnake. One of the most well-known venomous snakes, this is the final exhibit on the left wall. It houses a variety of rattlesnakes native to the Southwestern United States. The background of the exhibit is painted like a desert where many of these rattlesnakes live. The exhibit has large rocks for the snakes to lay on as well as hide in. The floor is covered in sand, rocks and sticks. There are spiky green cactus plants throughout the exhibit as well.

Rattlesnakes are venomous snakes with large bodies and triangle-shaped heads. Rattlesnakes range in color from brown, tan, yellow, green, black, gray or even red. Their coloration often helps them blend in with their habitat. They can range in size anywhere from 1 to 8 feet long. They are well known for their “rattles” found at the tips of their tails. Rattles are made up of scales, which get added each time the snake sheds its skin. When threatened they contract their muscles, causing the scales on their rattle to click together and make their distinctive sound. This serves as a warning to predators to stay away or face a venomous bite. Rattlesnakes are found in almost every part of the United States but are most common in the Southwest. They live in a variety of habitats including forests, grasslands, swamps and deserts.

We hope you enjoyed exploring the ProMedica Museum of Natural History and learned about the prehistoric animals of our past as well as the poisonous and venomous creatures that live around the world. Have fun discovering more exhibits and exploring the rest of the Zoo.