My fifth visit to the San Diego Zoo this year was enjoyed with two long-time friends, Mary and Randy, each of whom brought a young daughter along. I meandered around on my own for the first couple of hours, taking pictures while listening to my iPod, and talking to keepers and horticulturists about primates and flora on this, the last day of the Zoo’s Absolutely Apes celebration. Photographically speaking I captured tigers, a hippo, red pandas, pigs, polar bears, a miniature horse, meerkats, a binturong, pygmy goats, a fossa, a pangolin, a tarantula and my human primate friends. We had a nice social, if chilly, lunch at the Treehouse Café where I enjoyed a plate of cheese ravioli. And from today’s visit I learned that humans are the only primates that have chins and that the amazing flower that blooms outside the giraffe exhibit is called Leucospermum Sunrise. It was also confirmed to me that taken together all the species of flora at the Zoo are worth more than all the fauna, and that every ten years the Zoo has to list and catalogue every single one of their plants, trees, shrubs, bushes and flowers in order to stay accredited as a botanical garden. Oh, and also learned that binturong can rotate their ankles for easier climbing.
( a n i m a l p i c s )
