SOME LIKE IT HOT

THERMAL IMAGING

MATT GOETZ HEAD OF HERPETOLOGY DEPARTMENT

Thermal or infrared imaging is the process of taking digital pictures with a specialised camera, which records infrared or heat radiation as opposed to visible light.

The accurateness and availability of this technology in recent years has transformed the husbandry of reptiles and amphibians, which have very specific temperature requirements. We can record parameters in their wild environments and then accurately replicate them in the zoo environment to ensure the best animal welfare.

With this camera, as well as recording the temperature in one spot (like with a thermometer), we can see the distribution of temperatures throughout an enclosure at the same time. For reptiles, it is especially important to have areas larger than the animal that are uniformly hot, to create an ideal space for basking.

We can also confirm that a basking area is heated just the right way so that the reptile heats up uniformly to the temperature of the surroundings. In the past, without the thermal imaging camera, there was no easy way to tell whether, for example, the body was heating up while the tail, legs and head remained cold.

Our veterinary staff are also trialling the camera to observe heat loss in our fruit bats when an animal has to undergo anaesthesia for medical examination. Through their huge wing membranes, bats can lose significant amounts of heat while being examined and staff can intervene and warm the wings with heated towels. Keeping their body temperature stable aids in recovery from anaesthesia.

By filming our buildings in winter we can very easily detect heat loss through less well insulated spaces and intervene to keep our heating bills down.