Reptiles in Barcelona Zoo

Remember I went to Barcelona a couple of months ago? And I visited Barcelona Zoo. They have a pretty large reptile house that is supposed to be good - of course I had to see that. :-) And it was definitely well worth the visit. Of course I made a video. ;-)

This first one is from the reptile house ... like I said it was good, a lot of interesting species, very nice enclosures, the animals seemed to be very well taken care of. I posted some pictures from there already - you may remember the turtle trying to mate with a very uninterested female. He's in the video too, in living color. Enjoy. :-)


Widescreen here.

In addition to the reptile house, the Zoo also has a smallish group of Galapagos turtles. There were five or six of them. They have their own enclosure with a relatively roomy indoor area and a nice outdoor area as well. Some of them were outside when I arrived, so I really got to take a good look at them. Which of course I was thrilled about. Amazing animals. Watch the one that wades out into the water. Kind of slow, but very determined ... ;-)


Widescreen here.

Pictures from Barcelona Zoo

Of course I had to visit the zoo while I was in Barcelona ... it's supposed to be a good zoo and it has a reptile house. :-) So I just had to go there. The weather was wonderful, warm and sunny, almost more like summer than spring. Aw. Here are a few of the many many pictures I took. :-)

Like many zoological gardens, Barcelona Zoo is infested with peafowl. It was quite extreme, in fact. They were everywhere. Photo ops galore ... ! :-D

There were daisies growing on one of the lawns. Daisies!! In the middle of March! These people don't know how good they have it, I tell you.

The preserved skeleton of a whale that washed up somewhere in Spain a few decades ago. Mmm, whale ...

There were quite a few turtles in the reptile house, and one of them was ... in a really good mood. He kept trying to mate with one of the females - if indeed it was a female - and she was SO not interested. :-D I'll be uploading a video of it on Youtube soon. Something to look forward to. ;-)

One of the elephants was having its feet cleaned by one of its keepers. You may not be aware of this, dear reader, but foot rot is the leading cause of death in captive elephants. It's a very dangerous condition, so proper foot care is essential for pachyderms in captivity. Barcelona Zoo's elephant keepers were taking advantage of the lovely weather to carry out this chore outdoors, so visitors could see it. Smart. I was pleased to see that they practice protected contact, at least while in sight of visitors. What you see in the photo is testimony to how used this animal is to this procedure ... standing still while the feet are tended to may become boring for the elephant, so another keeper served as a distraction with a bucketful of tiny treats (radishes, strawberries, goodies about that size). The elephant - as you see - folded its trunk away on the top of its head and stood with its mouth open waiting for treats to be inserted. :-D As Homer Simpson would say, FOOD GOES IN HERE! :-D

I want one ... !!

Emys orbicularis, the European pond turtle. Cuteness!! I want one ... !



From this year's trip to the Nordic Ark, obviously. :-) Widescreen here.

Warsaw 2009: reptiles at the Zoo again

Some photos from my visit to the reptile house in Warsaw Zoo. Not all of them are that good ... please remember that these were all taken through glass. :-) You can see a video from my visit here ... for those of you who may have missed that. :-)

A map turtle in the first enclosure ... this held a number of freshwater turtles of similar size, various sliders and maps and so on, and this one was staying out of the crowd a bit. :-) Soo pretty, I want one ... !!

A gila monster.

A green basilisk. This shot I am soo happy with. Again, remember that this was taken through glass ... and with a compact camera on almost full zoom. Really good shot if I do say so myself. :-)

A yellow anaconda.

Are you lookin' at me?? A Cuban crocodile.

Nile crocodiles ... juveniles, obviously. This facility isn't equipped to house fully grown individuals of this species.

An Amazon milk frog. These critters are so pretty, but they always look so sad. :-) At least that's how they look to me. I wonder what it is that makes me 'read' them that way.

Yellow poison dart frogs.

This toad had buried itself comfortably in the moist substrate.

Another lizzie shot that I'm really happy with. :-)

A radiated tortoise chomping on its dinner.

This Asian river turtle was huge ... the picture doesn't show its size properly, but it was quite impressive.

Hello there ... !! :-D

More photos here.

Warsaw 2009: the Zoo

One thing I really wanted to do in Warsaw was to visit the zoo. It has an interesting history ... it's quite old, it was established in 1928, and it has an impressive collection, about 5,000 specimens of altogether almost 500 species. During the second world war, the then director of the zoo concealed more than two hundred Jews, mostly children, on the premises and saved their lives. What a story. There's a book about that which I really want to read ... I'm keeping an eye out for that.

Getting to the zoo is easy from downtown, just jump on a streetcar - I don't remember which line, but the stop is called Warsaw Zoo :-) - and it takes about 20 minutes to get there.

Anyway ... we were there on a cold and rainy March day, so most of the animals were snuggled up inside. We didn't see a lot of them. :-) But I was mainly there to see the reptile house, so I was happy with our visit anyway. My mother was just there because I was there, so she didn't really care, she mostly just wanted to get it over with. :-D

I took a bunch of pictures, they weren't all that, but here are the best ones.

Welcome to Miejski Ogród Zoologiczny w Warsawie. :-)

The first animals we saw were the flamingos. They were out in the bad weather, looking a bit bedraggled by the rain.

Check out those legs. :-D

Some outdoor scenery. I bet this place looks wonderful in the summer ... when it's also teeming with visitors. The Warsaw Zoo is visited by approximately 600,000 people every year. About ten of them while we were there. :-)

The aquarium was pretty good. At least the fish part ... they had some monkeys in one section of it too, but poor things, they didn't look too happy. And it reeked, too. Poor little critters. :-(

I found Nemo! :-D

Seahorses. I love seahorses, they're completely fascinating creatures.

zomg elephants!!1

The elephants were kind of wrestling with each other and seemed to be bickering over a hole in the ground. I don't know what that was about. :-) But I got some wonderful shots of them. I was so thrilled to see them ... even though I am quite sceptical of the whole elephants in zoos thing. But that's a story for another blog post.

A lama out in the rain.

Goats staying out of the rain.

We got to see the penguins at feeding time. :-) Hoomin! U has fudz??

Please donate to your local zoo!! :-)

Carcassonne 2009: London Zoo, part 2

More pictures from my visit to London Zoo, on my way to Carcassonne, France. August 6th.

A couple of butterflies, Lepidoptera, in the rather ... inflatable-looking butterfly house.

Look at this one, its wings are hardly even there. Weirdness. :-)

The otters, Lutra lutra, were of course adorable. Squee. :-)

A couple of green iguanas, Iguana iguana, in the rainforest house where I sought shelter from the rain.

Aww. I so agree, we can't imagine what it must have been like. But I almost wish we could. :-)

A sloth, Folivora, still in the rainforest house. In Norwegian these animals are called dovendyr, which means lazy animal. V. appropriate. :-)

After the rain let up, I left the rainforest house and made my way towards the African section. Where so many fascinating animals were on display!! Warthogs, giraffes! Zebras and hunting dogs! Okapis and toilets! Wheee!!!

An African warthog, Phacochoerus africanus. A face only a mother could love.

One of the giraffes, Giraffa camelopardalis, really wanted to go outside, but for some reason they weren't allowed to. Maybe it was too cold ... but on the other hand the door was partly open, letting the temperature in, so I'm not sure that makes sense. o_O

Oh, for the great outdoors ... !!