There’s cats, and then there’s cats.
He’s handsome and he knows it… (Taken with instagram)
Did you know our ambassador, zookeeperrick, is on Tumblr? If you like our blog you’ll probably like his. http://zookeeperrick.tumblr.com/
I like how zookeeperrick refers to the giraffes and porcupines as his coworkers. And having met him a couple of times, I can vouch for him as a nice guy and a fine ambassador for the zoo.
Bronx Zoo giraffe, one of four new photos from the zoo at my photoblog, The Occasional Odd Crop.
The Bronx Zoo is great, but the contrasts between it and my hometown San Diego Zoo are striking. For one thing, the San Diego Zoo doesn’t have a river. Nice touch, Bronx.
For another, the train tour at the Bronx Zoo is fantastic - the place is laid out so that everything you see is on the same side of the train, and all of the seats face that side. No lurching from one side of the vehicle to the other, as happens in the San Diego Zoo.
On the other hand - and this is more important than trains and rivers - the Bronx Zoo made me appreciate the horticulture department in San Diego, which labors mostly behind the scenes to make the animals’ surroundings at least somewhat like their natural habitats.
They do an incredible job, which I didn’t fully understand until we went to the Bronx Zoo. In the Bronx, it was just weird to see the giraffes, lions and other animals lounging and foraging among extremely North American maples and elms.
Full disclosure: My wife works for the San Diego Zoo.
Tree pangolin on Flickr.
Given what those scales look like, I’m guessing this is a member of the subspecies pine tree pangolin.