Cashi Stikuntongus

When Curator of Herpetology (reptiles and amphibians) Andrew Snider was planning the National Amphibian Conservation Center at the Detroit Zoo, he wanted some way visitors could donate money to help the effort to protect wild frogs, toads, salamanders and other amphibians. He had seen the Brochuri Putinherecus in the zoo's Wildlife Interpretive Gallery and knew about its success in encouraging visitors to deposit their brochures in the mouth of the sculpture.   He wondered if the same idea might be applied to money.
Enlisting the aid of engineer Nick Holland, we came up with this warty fellow.  Made of fiber glass epoxy over a sturdy steel frame, he responds to coins or bills dropped in its mouth.  Most of the thirty-six responses are short, but four are poems culled from Jill Carpenter's beautiful collection, "Of Frogs and Toads", a book of poems about amphibians that is really about much more.  Most of the responses are performed by Carollette Goodman and Edmund Jones, players from Mosaic Youth Theater of Detroit.  All proceeds are given to the Amphibian Taxon Advisory Group of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums.
Several years later the Toronto Zoo heard about it.


 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

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