Zoo

Here's another super long post that's overly abundant in photos.

I took the girls to visit the San Diego Zoo this week. It was super fun and educational. It would be safe to say that the things we learned most about were 1. the private parts of various creatures, and 2. the waste of those creatures.

First stop: PRIMATES!!! 

(Lily is obsessed)

I love watching these guys climb and swing. So entertaining.

I think the orangutans ended up being my favorite. 

On the way to the next exhibit, Lily was chased by this bird.

Fishies (we were looking for the crock...see below)

 Lizards

Back to monkeys! This time the gorillas. Also highly entertaining. These guys all lay right on the other side of the glass. This picture reminds me of the scene in Disney's Tarzan where the baby Tarzan puts his hand in his gorilla mother's hand right before Phil Collins busts out a cheesy song.

 

 

Ever inspected gorilla toe nails?

 

Note the feet up on the glass.

Profile line up

Okay, hold on to your stomach for the next set of pics. This was hilarious. The silver back perched up on this log and was quickly followed by the little guy...

And a female...

They were on the edge of their seats waiting for what happened next...

And then little guy did a little poking and prodding as he watched.

Soon after #1 came #2 and now we know why they were waiting so anxiously...

(Yes, she really ate it. This was not completely shocking to me, as I once watched a gorilla in the Frankfurt zoo continually regurgitate in her hand and eat it.)

Moving right along!

The chimps were a little boring because they were all huddled up and looked depressed (I think they were cold). However, I think that middle one was trying to make some sort of an announcement to her male friends...  (enlarge for full effect)

 Don't they kinda look like hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil?

Hippos!

At this point we circled back to the orangs for another visit. This guy was rolling those two peas around for a while. 

 

A zookeeper came out and started throwing veggies to the monkeys. This dude stole all the sugar snap peas and ran up the tree.

And now to Ana's favorite...GIRAFFES!  She's always loved giraffes and knows a surprising amount about them. They really are such a neat creature. God really got creative with this one.

 

Like that when they give birth the poor babies drop about 4 feet to the ground.

Look, he's looking right at the camera.

 

Speaking of baby giraffes, have you ever seen one dance? 

Rhinos. What the heck?! Can you get a good look at this dude? I swear that's fitted armor, not skin. (highly suggested to enlarge this)

This camel won the prize for the most gnarly looking animal. He was foaming/spitting in this picture. And looking directly at me. I'm the zoo animal whisperer.

These rings are elephant collars.

This section of the zoo was really interesting because it showed us all the prehistoric animals that lived in southern California 10+ thousand years ago. Check out this giant camelish thing. 

This elephant is named Mary. She's 48. Evidently the average life span of an elephant is 45, but they can live up to 55 or more if they're healthy. Mary was old and out of shape. The zoo keeper was walking her (using alfalfa pellets to encourage her to keep going).

The Columbian mammoths were the SoCal equivalent of elephants and they were bigger than these guys. Replicas below.

 

 

 

 

This falcon used to fly around these parts. :/

Little modeling sesh with Lily behind the camera telling me what to do (she needs a spanking, I know).

Lily especially loved this sign.

 We spoke to the lion keeper for a long time. He told us all kinds of information, like that lion urine is the grossest, stinkiest, stickiest stuff you can imagine. The lion sprays people all the time and there's basically no way to salvage your clothing. It's garbage after it's been hit.

Check out this bad boy. The prehistoric cats in these parts were 25% larger than modern day African cats. Would hate to run into this in the forest.

What do you want to know about this guy? Trust me we can tell you.

At this point it started to rain, so we hurried through what we could. 

And by the panda bear we were getting drenched so we left, but I couldn't resist stopping for a picture of this bear's back fat. 

Ever since the zoo, Ana is trying to figure out how she can have a pet giraffe. She's begging me to move to Louisiana because she seems to think it's legal to have one there. As if there weren't enough reasons to live in LA (the OTHER LA).