Come visit our Discovery Room! See our collection of live animals. We have an assortment of small games to play and several artifacts from nature hikes we have taken at the park. Snake skins, feathers, rocks, and leaves are out for you to touch and learn about. Visit often because things in this room may change frequently. Here are some of the animals you will find in the Discovery Room at Westmoor Park:

Painted Turtle
Chrysemys picta
With quite an appropriate name, this aquatic species is New England’s most familiar and conspicuous and familiar turtle. You can often observe them basking in numbers on rocks and logs in a pond on a sunny day, but a quite when approaching, for they will slip into the water at the slightest disturbance. During courtship, the male swims in front of the female and rapidly vibrates his long toenails along her head. Then mating follows. The young hatch from eggs in the fall and spend the long winter months in the nest exposed to the extreme weather. Their body fluids can actually freeze and thaw again in the spring!

Red-eared Slider
Trechemys scripta elegans
As their name implies, there is a red stripe behind each eye. This slider lives in sluggish waters, shallow streams, swamps, ponds, and lakes with soft bottoms and dense vegetation. Their natural habitat is the Mississippi River and its tributaries. They are very fond of basking and can be seen stacked one upon another on a log. Adults are vegetarians while the young eat aquatic insects, crustaceans, mollusks, and tadpoles. This particular turtle was a pet that was donated to the park. In captivity, it can live for more than 20 years.