Amazonia
Looking for a great place to visit over the summer holidays? 👀
Amazonia, Scotland’s Tropical Indoor Rainforest is the perfect place. See over 60 different species, including monkeys, parrots, snakes, spiders and much, much more 🕷️🦜
PLUS, you can add a handling session for just £1.25 - subject to availability 🐍
Open seven days a week, so you can’t miss out!
For more information and to book your tickets, click the link in the comments below now.
Volunteer Emma had her work cut out today monitoring Enrique, our six-banded armadillo, as his ramp was fixed and painted, much more enjoyable than watching paint dry!
If you fancy getting closer to the animals and gaining experience of working in a zoo environment then please get in touch!
Green swordtail fish...
Male green swordtail grows to a maximum overall length of 14 centimetres (5.5 in) and the female to 16 centimetres (6.3 in). The name 'swordtail' is derived from the elongated lower lobe of the male's tailfin.
Have a look out for our green swordtails in either our large pond or our community fish tank next to our tegu lizard here at Amazonia.
Plan your visit | Scotland's Theme Park (scotlandsthemepark.com)
Happy 10th Birthday to our kinkajou Forest ❤️ Here he is enjoying a birthday treat, a passionfruit! 🎂
A very Happy Christmas to everyone from the Amazonia team, the animals had some treats today ❤️ 🎅 🎄 🎁 ###
Toe tapping signals! Many dart frogs just like our green and blacks here use their toes to communicate and also hunt. By tapping those toes it creates a vibration in the ground around them, forcing prey items such as fruit flies to move in reaction to this vibration. This then allows the frog to locate the fly and gobble them up. Come visit our toe dancing frogs here at Amazonia!Book tickets : https://scotlandsthemepark.com/tickets/prices
Are YOU ready for Halloween??!?!!?
AMAZOMBIAAAAAAA presents FRIGHT NIGHT!
We still have some tickets available for Tuesday 31st October!!!
6:30pm - 9pm
Enjoy the snake feeding tour, creepy critter handling sessions and a spooky nocturnal experience.
Bat feeding experiences also available on the night, £10 per person (max. 3 people per experience, available to ages 5 and over, please enquire at reception on your arrival).
Plus, complete the Halloween nocturnal quiz to be in with the chance of winning a Keeper for a Day experience!
Adults - £6.70
Children - £5.25
Tickets available now - please follow the link in comments!
🎃 👻 🧙♀️
Suitably dated around the Halloween season, Bat appreciation week runs from October the 24th until the night of Halloween.
Being the only true flying mammals, bats are incredibly important for not only our environment but for some of our favourite treats too.
They are incredible pollinators as pollen often sticks to them as they land of different plants with some of these plants including: cocoa bean plant, vanilla pod plant and coffee bean plants. Therefore, without bats we wouldn’t have treats like chocolate, ice cream or coffee. Bats are so important to plant life that Worldwide, there are over 500 species of flowers in at least 67 plant families rely on bats as their main pollinators.
There are 1400 species of bats worldwide and they have all cleverly worked out different diets to reduce competition with other bat species.
78% feed strictly on insects while the rest of the bat populations feed on fruit, nectar, lizards, frogs, other bats and even three species that feed on blood.
Our Sebas fruit bats here at Amazonia are mainly frugivores, eating around 2kg of fruit per day, with banana being their favourite. However, come the afternoon they do feed on a plate full of mealworms for their protein feed which they also enjoy.
Come visit our bat colony in the nocturnal section of Amazonia. Book tickets here: https://scotlandsthemepark.com/tickets/prices
🌱Today is National "Ants on a log" Day!🐜
This is a famous snack over in the states where celery is dipped into peanut butter and topped with raisins to look like ants crossing a log. 🥜
Come visit our REAL! leafcutter ants walking along the log (rope) in the zoo!
Look out for the ones carrying the biggest leaf or almond piece.
Book Tickets here: https://scotlandsthemepark.com/tickets/prices/
Leafcutter ants are BACK in Amazonia! Be sure to check out their rope on your next visit, where you will see them travelling along, cutting and carrying leaves back to their nest area. Leafcutter ants do not eat the leaves they collect, but they are farmers and use leaves as their fertilizer to grow their crop, fungus.
They cultivate their fungus gardens by providing them with freshly cut leaves, protecting them from pests and moulds, clearing them of decayed material and waste. In return, the fungus acts as a food source for the ant larvae. The ants are so sensitive to the fungi’s needs that they can detect how they are responding to a certain food source and change accordingly. This symbiotic relationship benefits from a bacteria that grows on the ants’ bodies and secretes antimicrobials, which the ants use to protect their fungi.
Adult ants don’t feed on the fungus, but get their nutrients from leaf sap. Smaller adults often hitchhike on leaves being carried back to the nest to also feed on the sap, as well as protect the carrier from flies and to check that the leaf isn’t contaminated with anything.
Leafcutter ant society is divided into castes (different individuals), with each having a different role to play. The largest ant in the colony is the Queen ant, who lays all the eggs. She can lay thousands of eggs every day! Then there are are Majors, acting as soldiers, guarding the nest and helping to clear out the pathways between the nest and a food source. The next caste, the Mediae, is made up of thousands of smaller workers, cutting and transporting the bulk of the leaves to their nest. Next in size are the Minors, who protect the foraging path and food source, and the smallest ants, the Minims, work exclusively at home, tending to the larvae and fungus garden.
They are incredible to watch so make sure you pay them a visit next time you are here!🐜🐜🐜
🌱 Dinner time 🪴
Black beauty stick insects are super picky when it comes to food. They feed mainly on privet or honeysuckle, using their mandibles to pierce and break away parts of the plants leaves. This video shows one of our black beauties feeding on a private leaf.
Book tickets to come visit these guys here: https://scotlandsthemepark.com/tickets/prices/
Six-Banded Armadillo’s have really poor eyesight and rely on their excellent sense of smell to detect prey and predators. They are omnivores which means they feed both on plants and meat.🌱🥩 They mainly live solitary lives, however have been observed coming together to feed on carrion.
Here is our Six-Banded Armadillo Enrique, practicing his digging and tunnelling through his enclosure.
Come visit Enrique here at Discover Amazonia. Book tickets here: https://scotlandsthemepark.com/tickets/prices/
How many eyes do most spiders have? 🕷️ 👀
Answer: 8
Most spiders including tarantulas have 8 eyes but actually have very poor vision. They make up for this poor vision by relying on vibrations and fine hairs along their bodies to find food as well as escape predators.
Our brown Brazilian bird eater here is a new world species of tarantula meaning she is native to South America, particularly Brazil. New world tarantulas do possess venom but they mainly use their long urticating hairs to attach to the skin, eyes and throat of predators as well as giving them enough time to escape the scene.
Come visit our hairy, 8 eyed tarantulas today. Book tickets to Discover Amazonia: https://scotlandsthemepark.com/tickets/prices/
Amazonia
Discover over 60 different species at Amazonia, Scotland’s Tropical Rainforest 🌴🕷
Get your tickets now by clicking the link in the comments.
Guess what is happening to our Mexican red knee tarantula! Check out our post tomorrow to find out.
Amazonia is home to many fish species including Green Swordtails. These small fish are native to North and Central America in areas including Mexico and Honduras. They are called Swordfish due to their long section of their tail which looks a bit like a sword. These long tails are important in breeding seasons as female swordtails are more attracted to males with longer tails. They can reach lengths of up to 16cm which is often females as males are smaller and average at around 8cm. As well as length, these fish come in a range of different colours from olive green to a bronze colour and often have a red strip running along their bodies horizontally.
They have a lifespan of around 3-5 years and can live amongst other fish, however, males can become aggressive to one another. Swordtails do not lay eggs but in fact are 'livebearers 'which means they give birth to live young, just like us! They can give birth to up to 100 babies at once.
They are omnivores and can be seen feeding on small freshwater invertebrates and sometimes small crustaceans.
Come try and spot our Green Swordtails in our big tank. Book tickets to Amazonia here: https://scotlandsthemepark.com/tickets/prices/
Happy 9th Birthday to our gorgeous kinkajou, Forest! He is a very inquisitive creature and has a great sense of smell so was curious with his birthday gift! Within half an hour he had opened it and was playing with his new dog toy!
It is important we keep the animals stimulated and in this instance he hasn't stopped playing with his new toy since!
Later on today he will get kjnkajou cake, a special part of his diet which he gets several times a week, alongside vegetables and protein. Today we will add a few treats of fruit to it too! 😋
Come and visit Forest and his younger sister Poppy in our nocturnal area of the zoo! ❤️
