This is an I-Heart podcast.

Welcome to Creature Feature, production of IHeart Radio.

I'm your host of mini parasites, Katie Golden.

I studied psychology and evolutionary biology, and today on the show, we have a special episode

because I get to talk to someone from a zoo. Now, this happens to be a human being, so we will

be able to have a nice conversation. There's some really exciting news coming out from the

Philadelphia Zoo. And I am very pleased to have with me today Lauren Augustine who is the

director of herpetology at the Philadelphia Zoo Lauren welcome to the show. Thank you so much

for having me. I'm very excited to talk to you guys today. I am super excited about this news. I don't

know if my listeners have heard it but first Lauren tell us just a little bit about yourself what your role at the zoo and what kinds of animals do you work with. I'm the director of herpetology. Herpetology is a study of the creepy crawly, so reptiles and amphibians, of course. And so my job is to oversee the collection here at the zoo, their animal care, the staff

that take care of them, and then our conservation programs that are linked to those very

special species.

I think this is something that's key when it comes to zoos because there's so, like, as

a visitor, you get to see the animals and maybe you get to see some of the presentations

that happen at the zoo.

But there's a lot of stuff that's happening behind the scenes,

especially when it comes to conservation.

So in addition to actually taking care of the individuals at the zoo,

taking care of their health, their diet,

there's also larger conservation efforts. So you may have a species of animals that is not

doing so well in the wild. I imagine this is pretty common in herpetology, especially with

amphibians. And so you also have a lot of efforts to actually help animals that are out in the wild or preserve species that are

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