San Antonio Zoo

Project Selva supports indigenous Peruvian makers and artists by selling their crafts, including gyotaku fish prints, in zoo gift shops. Sales maintain the office in Iquitos, Peru, and support indigenous communities, with help from various partners.

The Mexican blindcat (Prietella phreatophila) is a rare subterranean catfish known from twelve sites in Coahuila, Mexico. Members of our team recently documented a population in Val Verde County, Texas, the first confirmed occurrence of this species in the United States.

The iconic Texas Horned Lizard (Phrynosoma cornutum) is the state reptile of Texas and was once abundant across the western two-thirds of the state. Since the late 1960s, horned lizard populations have declined or disappeared in many areas due to a variety of factors, including deterioration, fragmentation, and loss of habitat; non-native invasive species such as exotic grasses and red imported fire ants; and pesticide use. Many Texans have fond memories of the Texas Horned Lizard (aka “horny toad”) and wish for its return to its former abundance.

The Texas Horned Lizard Reintroduction Project at Center for Conservation and Research (CCR) at San Antonio Zoo seeks to restore the Texas Horned Lizard population by working with private landowners to introduce zoo hatched lizards in areas where it has disappeared in recent decades.