3:00 snapshot #1024: The whole Famn damily goes to Roger Williams Park Zoo

[urbpan]

This is the family at a pub in Rhode Island, where we had a late lunch after a long day at Roger Williams Park Zoo!



Lately I seem to have to tell people pretty often that my zoo doesn't have elephants. In one case it was because they heard the dinosaurs trumpeting. Roger Williams zoo has African elephants, and the Buttonwood Park Zoo in New Bedford has Asian elephants. Franklin Park Zoo hasn't had elephants since the 70's.


This enrichment device is simple but clever: The elephant has to use the digits on the end of its trunk to pull the hay out a little, then it uses the girth of its trunk to grab the hay and eat it.




I didn't plan this, but I ended up photographing the largest and smallest animals at the zoo. These are assassin bugs--they're actually quite large for insects, but they are still only a few grams. I bet they pack a punch. This zoo also breeds endangered American burying beetles, and a critically endangered snail species (which now that I think of it is probably much smaller than these assassin bugs).


Another family portrait, this time at the penguin exhibit.

Comments

[americanbeetles.livejournal.com]

Hooray, burying beetles! The beetlemaster was kind enough to give us a coleopterists-only behind the scenes tour a few years ago. They're so gorgeous, I wish they were more suited to public display (the beetles, not the coleopterists).

[elainetyger.livejournal.com]

Nice enrichment explanation. And haha about the trumpeting.

I used to work with 2 middle-aged guys who were always ragging on each other. One of them hung out all the time with a sweet young thing right after she joined the staff. The other guy said to him one day: Why are you sniffing around that Carolina? She doesn't want you; she's too young for you. If she wanted a dinosaur, she'd go to the zoo.