He drew about two teaspoons of blood. Part of it would be used to look for abnormalities, and the other part would be frozen at minus 100 degrees Fahrenheit. If Leonardo gets some strange disease, Hinshaw can thaw the original serum for comparison. At an adjacent table, Ialeggio and lab technician Sue Isackson were working on Ross, a ringtail from Kansas City while Baker was going back to the quarantine area to net two more ringtails. Animals that have been quarantined are given physicals to check their own health after a stressful adjustment process and to protect the rest of the zoo animals from contagious diseases.
Wild animals can be quite sick before showing it.
No one knows why, but one theory is that natural selection favors animals that maintain normal behavior when they are unwell over animals that slow down or show other signs of illness that will attract predators. Hinshaw and Ialeggio found only two problems with the six ringtails. One had an abrasion on its eyelid that they would monitor. Another had a small eruption on its nose that Hinshaw suspected was an abscess from a broken tooth. The animal might need a root canal.