The Columbus Zoo and Aquarium is home to more than 7,000 animals and 800 different species! The zoo also donates money to conservation programs both within the zoo and all over the world. One of these programs is the International Elephant Foundation, which works to save and protect both Asian and African elephants around the world.
At the zoo’s Asia Quest, you can find animals like sloth bears, markhors, Indian rhinoceroses, red pandas, Pallas’s cats, Amur tigers, and Indian elephants — a subspecies of Asian elephants.
Although Asian elephants are typically a smaller species, one of the zoo’s male elephants — a bull named Hank — is over 9 feet tall and weighs an impressive 15,600 pounds! The zoo’s other male elephant, Frankie, was born in 2021 and as of February 2023, weighed over 1,740 pounds. The two bulls live in a herd with several other female elephants, including Frankie’s mother and the herd’s matriarch Phoebe.
Best times to visit the Columbus Zoo:
Winter is an ideal time to visit the Columbus Zoo. It’s the perfect opportunity to get up close and personal with animals that love cooler weather. You can also visit a variety of indoor habitats to escape the chill. The worst cold occurs during January and February, but Columbus doesn’t get a lot of snow.
Another great option is to visit the zoo on a weekday while school is in session. In the spring and fall, the weather is nice and you can avoid large summer crowds.
Summers have warmer weather and there is less chance of rain. It can be rather humid, but it typically doesn’t get super hot. The hottest part of the summer is for two to three weeks in July or August, with temperatures around 90 degrees Fahrenheit.
The San Diego Zoo Safari Park is 32 miles away from the San Diego Zoo, near Escondido in the San Pasqual Valley area. However, the animal enclosures here are not like those at a zoo; these are large, open-air, free-roaming areas where you can see over 3,000 animals within more naturalistic habitats.
Elephant Valley is home to eight African elephants living on six acres with two main yards and a large pond. The Elephant Viewing Patio is a great place to watch the gentle giants, especially energetic young calves who love to play. In addition, this section of the park is currently being transformed into the new Denny Sanford Elephant Valley. The new-and-improved Elephant Valley will provide extraordinary opportunities for visitors to see the elephants from just a few feet away!
Best times to visit the San Diego Zoo Safari Park:
Springtime is one of the best seasons to visit the San Diego Zoo Safari Park. The weather is fantastic, and this is when all the baby animals are born. You can see many of them up close in special nursery exhibits.
The busiest time to visit is between June and August, and during school vacations. If you’re looking for a quieter time with fewer crowds, try going on a weekday instead of a weekend.
Mornings are the best time of day to see the animals. They tend to be more awake and active before it gets too hot.
Winters are also a great time to visit since San Diego has moderate temperatures and typically great weather all year round.
Arsinoitherium belonged to the extinct genus of paenungulate mammals under the extinct order Embrithopoda. The easiest way to recognize an Arsinoitherium was by the horns on its head. A noticeable feature of the Arsinoitherium was the pair of three-foot horns projecting from above the nose and the second pair of tiny, knob-like horns on top of the skull directly behind the more enormous horns. Their larger horns were hollow, and they may have used them to compete with other males and make loud mating calls.
These huge mammals had similar features with rhinos but had more resemblance with present-day elephants. Arsinoitherium is frequently compared to a rhinoceros in terms of appearance. However, its bone structure was more like that of an elephant as it possessed skulls, feet, and hips.
Their twin horns, shaped like knives, could grow up to 2.5 feet in length and sometimes even a little over three feet. One interesting fact about these horns is that they never broke, and experts believe they didn’t break because they were covered in keratin. These mammals were about six feet tall and were as long as 11 feet. They also weighed over 5,500 pounds (around 2500 kg).
Arsinoitherium lived about 56 million to 34 million years ago during the Eocene Epoch. However, more recent discoveries in other locations show that members of the genus survived into the Oligocene Epoch about 34 million to 23 million years ago. Experts in Egypt found the first fossils of the Arsinoitherium. Since these fossils were found around the Faiyum Oasis in Egypt, they decided to name their discovery after Queen Arsinoe I of Ancient Egypt.
2004 saw the discovery of new Arsinoitherium fossils by paleontologists researching in Ethiopia‘s Chilga region. The newly discovered species was named Arsinoitherium giganteus because, based on tooth comparisons, it was almost 25% larger than the initial fossils unearthed. In addition to these noteworthy discoveries, paleontologists have also discovered a number of fossil fragments (primarily teeth) in various regions of Africa and the Middle East that originate from an unidentified species of the genus.
While alive, members of the Arsinoitherium genus were massive, slow-moving mammals. It is generally believed that they, like modern hippos, resided in swamps and semi-aquatic environments. Instead of swinging forward, their forelimbs were designed to pull firmly backwards. This trait is typical of animals that prefer to drag themselves across marshes, sticky soils, and other types of shallow water. As a testament to this, most of the fossils discovered thus far were found in sediments resembling warm, humid lowland forests with dense vegetation or coastal swamp settings. Arsinoitherium preferred to spend time in small groups that spent most of the time in the water. Its inability to straighten its legs implied that it chose to wade and swim rather than walk.
The habitat of Arsinoitherium was disrupted by significant climate change that occurred in the Late Eocene. The temperature changed from being hot to being much more chilly. Due to this, their moist forested environment was lost, and grasslands and savannas began to grow. A few of these mammals survived still and began to change habitats, looking for other parts of the continent that were still warm and had enough food for them. However, by the Middle Oligocene, these animals could no longer move around as much, as most of their food sources had been destroyed. Consequently, they went extinct shortly after this period.
