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Biome

The Exploration Place’s Biome is home to over 20 Animal Ambassadors (and counting!) whose job is to represent their species by interacting with our visitors during demonstrations and educational programs.

Welcome to the Biome

Our biome is expanding!

Get ready to meet some new Animal Ambassadors while you reconnect with some familiar faces like Loki the Magpie, Tom the Hermann’s Tortoise, and Rio the Ball Python.

Animal Ambassadors

Our Animal Ambassadors are the most unusual (and most popular) members of our team—those who sport exoskeletons and those who eat mice! They play a crucial role in connecting people of all ages with nature, environmental conservation, and the issues influencing each species and their native habitats.

Each animal helps us spark a life-long interest in learning.

Nature Exchange

The Nature Exchange is a permanently installed learning environment that encourages people of all ages to appreciate nature and to learn about the biological and physical components of our environment through observation, background research, and responsible collecting.

Learn more

What is the Nature Exchange?

The Nature Exchange is a place where you can trade journal pages and personal photos from nature for points and then use those points to "buy" other items from our Nature Exchange, like shells, amethysts, agate slabs, rose quartz pieces, shark teeth, space rocks, arrowheads, or geodes. No money is needed! Use your points now or save them up in our points bank!

What can be traded?

Journal pages (available for download below) or personal photos, drawings, rubbings, or notes on natural items from the world around you, including bugs, rocks, fossils, shed antlers, seashells, feathers, and more!

More points

If you want to earn even more points, do a little research. Find a bug on your walk? Look up its markings online and see if you can find out what it's called. The more you can tell us about your find, the more valuable it is. Do some research in books or online, or look at the books in the Nature Exchange. Teach us something new!

Remember to always be respectful of the environment and caring toward wild animals when you are observing! Leave only footprints. Take only memories (or photographs!)

Click Here to download your nature exchange journal

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Ball Python

Juju joined our Ambassador team during our closure. Ball pythons are shy by nature, but with some time and effort, they learn to trust their caregivers. She is still a bit hesitant but is slowly starting to feel more comfortable around people. In the wild, you can find ball pythons throughout the grasslands and open forests of West and Central Africa. As the most popular snake species kept as a pet worldwide, most people have had the pleasure of seeing one of these beautiful animals at some point in their lives. Unfortunately, due to their extreme popularity as pets, one of the greatest threats to this species in terms of conservation is the over-collection of wild populations for distribution in the pet trade. While captive breeding has seen an increase in recent years, most of those sold in the pet trade are still wild-caught, simply because the cost is much lower than that of breeding and raising captive specimens. For this reason, tens of thousands of these animals are collected from the wild and exported from Africa for the pet trade every year. The ball python is one of the smallest species in their genus, reaching maximum lengths of 3-5 feet, with females being larger than their male counterparts. In the wild, these snakes are estimated to live roughly ten years, while in captivity, a lifespan of about 20-30 years is typical. There have been many documented cases of captive individuals living 40-60 years, including one 62-year-old female who mysteriously produced a fertile clutch of eggs despite being housed alone at the Saint Louis Zoo for more than 20 years.

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VIDEO

Black-Billed Magpie

Anyone who’s been to the museum in person since 2015 will likely recognize this cheeky bird. Loki has formed unique relationships with many guests and staff alike over the years and definitely isn’t shy about picking favourites. The stimulation of observing and interacting with guests of all ages is something that he certainly enjoys.

Did you know that magpies, a member of the corvid family, are some of the most intelligent birds on the planet? In fact, corvids are some of the most intelligent animals known to exist, with a brain-to-body mass outmatched only by humans, great apes, and aquatic mammals such as dolphins. Magpies have shown the ability to imitate human speech in numerous languages and voices, are capable of tool use, and possess problem-solving ability on par with that of a small human child.

Loki was rescued from a dog attack as a hatchling when he and his siblings fell from their nest. Unfortunately, he was the lone survivor of his brood. Because he is very imprinted on humans, thus not eligible for release into the wild, Loki was brought to live in the museum and was integrated into the Biome as an Animal Ambassador. He has been one of our most interactive and popular Ambassadors ever since. Loki is very intelligent, able to mimic human speech, and performs many different little tricks and games.

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