San Diego Zoo Part V: Some Last-minute Exhibits

Unfortunately, not long after going through Elephant Odyssey, I had to cut the trip short. Here are some last-minute photos I got as I walked back towards the exit of the zoo.

Here's a takin, probably a relict of the old Horn and Hoof Mesa.

Some lion-tailed macaques.

A (melanistic) jaguar.

I think this is a Siamese fireback, but my memory is fuzzy.

And my memory is even fuzzier for this one. The fact that there isn't much to look at besides a bundle of feathers doesn't help. Reeve's pheasant?

Another one of the many types of hornbill that are at the zoo (and that I don't remember the exact name of).

A snow leopard. It kept moving around, so this is about the best photo I got (and besides, I was in more of a hurry than usual).

A squirrel monkey. Somewhere between here and the next photo I decided to go pay a visit to the zoo's kiwis. Unlike the other nocturnal animals at the zoo, the kiwis are kept in a nocturnal house. I'd never seen these interesting maniraptors, and the last time I came they were off exhibit.

Except... as it turned out they were off exhibit this time as well! What a let down.

Just outside the kiwi house was this lowland anoa. Another (comparatively) rarely seen creature as far as zoos go. Too bad it's a stinking synapsid.

Babirusa are neat as well. Still, stinking synapsids.

It's only proper to end with a maniraptor, so here's a wompoo fruit dove.

All in all, even with my two trips to this zoo so far combined, I still didn't quite get to visit the entire zoo. But there are only two major exhibition areas (Tiger River and the giant pandas) I haven't been to at least once, so I suppose I haven't done too badly. Might want to give it another go in the distant future. And I need to see some kiwis.

San Diego Zoo Part IV: Elephant Odyssey

Now that I'm writing this post, I've realized that I didn't take as many pictures of Elephant Odyssey as I probably should have. Perhaps that says something about which animals I'm more interested in (i.e.: things like sauropsids, amphibians, and the smaller mammals instead of the large crowd-pleasing mammals). Which also means that, ironically, I didn't take any pictures of the elephants for which the entire exhibition area is named, even though they had these gigantic exhibits that take several minutes to walk past.

By the way, I mentioned earlier that this new area replaces the Horn and Hoof Mesa that ran down the entire "right" side of the zoo, so it's a big, big exhibition area. Fortunately, my stamina appears to increase by a hundred percent when I'm in a zoo, so I could walk all day without being tired out too much. (Once I stepped out of the zoo, on the other hand...) There was also the fact that I was suffering from a bit of jet lag at the time, which turned out to be useful in that I didn't get hungry at the "right" times and so didn't have to make long stops for lunch. (Meanwhile, the "increased stamina effect" staved off the less desirable side effects of jet lag, i.e.: wanting to sleep at the "wrong" times, though that made me extra sleepy once the effect was gone.)

Elephant Odyssey is an interesting exhibit concept. The exhibit area focuses on extinct (Cenozoic) Californian animals and their still-living counterparts (either modern relatives or ecologically similar species). Statues of the extinct species are placed near the exhibits containing these modern counterparts. (I didn't get any photos of the statues, but I probably should have.) The titular elephants represent the many extinct proboscideans known from California. There are also some animals here that are native Californian species that known from close relatives in the recent fossil record and still live today.

A California condor, representing both a native Californian species as well as the extinct giant carnivorous bird Teratornis. An exhibit panel explains that prehistoric California condors probably survived by feeding on the carcasses of marine mammals on coastlines, while Teratornis, more dependent on the bodies of large land mammals, died out.

Another exhibit contained native turtles, lizards, newts, and frogs in an open-air and very large (compared to the occupants) display area, similar to the displays in the Reptile Mesa. I think it's really nice that small "reptiles" and amphibians get such exhibits, not just the large mammals and birds. However, I was not able to find most of the exhibit's occupants that day other than this western fence lizard.

Even native arthropods got some representation at Elephant Odyssey. There are a series of terrariums housing beetles and scorpions. However, the glare on the glass of these exhibits was very strong. I spent a long time trying to photograph some diving beetles, but in the end the only decent picture I have of the arthropods are of these dung beetles.

The two coolest animals at Elephant Odyssey got to share an exhibit. (They're both maniraptors, naturally.) One is this black-billed magpie. Corvids are cool. That goes without saying.

The other is this secretary bird, a long-legged bird of prey that hunts mostly on the ground. Secretary birds, of course, are not from California but from Africa. This one is here to represent the Daggett's eagle, an extinct long-legged hawk that did live in California. Secretary birds feed on many types of small animals, but are best known for hunting snakes, which they kill by stamping into the ground. (Okay, they actually kill most of their prey that way.)

There was also a mixed exhibit showcasing several South American mammals (capybaras, tapirs, and guanacos) to represent the fact that now-extinct capybaras, tapirs, and laminins once lived in North America. Here are some capybaras.

There are a lot of other exhibits at Elephant Odyssey (lions, jaguars, duikers, pronghorn, rattlesnakes, donkeys, camels, etc.), so I really haven't done a thorough job at covering it.

San Diego Zoo Part III: Some Miscellaneous Exhibits

On my first trip to the San Diego Zoo one of the places I visited was the Horn and Hoof Mesa, a very long trail that ran down the entire right side ("right" as depicted on the zoo map) of the zoo and exhibited mostly (as one can guess) hoofed mammals. This time, I walked into the zoo feeling certain I wouldn't have to walk that long trail this time around.

But when I examined the new zoo map, something was off. The Horn and Hoof Mesa was gone, and in its place was an entirely new exhibition area: Elephant Odyssey.

That was something I didn't foresee.

That wasn't necessarily a bad thing. New exhibits at zoos are usually quite fun. I decided to go and see what this one was all about. However, I certainly hadn't planned on adding an entire area this big to the trip. This would shake things up a lot.

As Elephant Odyssey is situated at the far right of the zoo, I got to check out some of the other exhibits located along the various trails on my way there. As it turns out, this is going to be a maniraptor-heavy post.

A Guam rail.

A female magpie robin.

Some binturongs.

I think this is a fig parrot. I'm certainly going to remember to photograph the signs next time.

Another minor drawback of this zoo is that even the nocturnal animals tend to be housed outdoors (with one exception that I'll get to in a later post). So I didn't have much luck seeing things like lorises and flying squirrels. There's probably a better chance if one visited those around dusk. (The zoo opens to eight at night during summer and winter holidays.) However, I still got to see this southern white-faced scops owl. This species is famous for its defensive responses: it can either fluff its feathers and spread its wings to look more threatening, or press its feathers tightly against its body to resemble a tree limb. Another good use for feathers, and a good example of how feathers can drastically alter the apparent shape and size of a dinosaur.

A laughing kookaburra. One of my favorite living maniraptors.

A banded mongoose. Seeing this guy reminded me that typical mongooses are unusual among small carnivorans in being largely diurnal.

A koala.

This parma wallaby lived in the same exhibit as one of the koalas. It had a shelter underneath the elevated walkway that surrounded the koala exhibits.

A ring-tailed lemur. Unusually, these lemurs were kept with rock hyraxes, perhaps because this is one enclosure the hyraxes can't escape from. (Hyraxes are good climbers, and I hear they're difficult to confine.)

A Visayan warty pig.

Some Cuvier's gazelles.

A bateleur eagle.

A Madagascar buttonquail. This one was part of an exhibit with several other African birds.

For example, there was this white-headed buffalo weaver.

There was also this green woodhoopoe.

In another exhibit was this guineafowl.

The guineafowl lives with this hornbill, though I'm not certain what species this is. (The zoo has a lot of different hornbill species, by the way.)

And here's a white-bellied go-away bird.

San Diego Zoo Part II: Children's Zoo

In the same general part of the San Diego Zoo (called the Discovery Outpost) as the Reptile House and Reptile Mesa is the Children's Zoo. It's probably called that because it has these easy-to-read signs and hosts various animal encounter programs (and probably others) throughout the day (and it also closes earlier than the other major exhibits at the zoo), but it has a varied collection of interesting animals, and is by no means just for kids.

I'd actually been to the Children's Zoo the first time I came here, but I wanted to check up on one particular individual animal.

One of the first animals I saw in the Children's Zoo, a Goeldi's marmoset.

A fennec fox. One of the few (minor) drawbacks of this zoo is that many of the smaller animals that are kept in outdoor exhibits have these wire mesh cages that... aren't conductive to photography.

This is the animal I wanted to check on. Victor the short-beaked echidna is the oldest resident mammal at the zoo. He's more than fifty years old! He was much the same the last time I saw him: half buried in the sand with his quills protruding. What an interesting species and individual. He really deserves more attention than I saw him get. Or not. He might appreciate an uninterrupted nap.

As would probably be expected, a number of other visitors misidentified Victor as a porcupine. Ironically, just nearby was an exhibit with an actual crested porcupine. It also appeared to enjoy sleeping in its den.

Here is a good demonstration of how even comparatively mundane species can make for interesting displays. This tank houses domesticated albino house mice. The most interesting part of the exhibit is that the mice are living inside a giant loaf of bread. It's an edible home for them.

Maniraptors at last! Here's a kea, an inquisitive omnivorous New Zealand parrot.

Some collared lories.

A naked mole rat.

A river otter.

A thick-billed parrot, one of the few parrots that lived in the United States (but is now only found in the wild in Mexico).

A male Andean cock-of-the-rock.

A scarlet macaw.

A rock hyrax. My first hyrax! As it turns out, I found that there was no shortage of rock hyraxes at the zoo. I saw half a dozen exhibits with them scattered throughout the zoo. They're a little bigger than I expected (probably because we're always talking about how small hyraxes are compared to their closest terrestrial relatives the elephants).

Some meerkats. This is another species that is everywhere in this zoo.

Technically not part of the Children's Zoo, there's an easy-to-miss aviary nearby. Just outside of it were these mountain bamboo partridges.

And across from them is a green aracari. It has its back turned to the camera.

This was one of the many walk-through aviaries at the San Diego Zoo (and one of the smaller ones), and it also happened to be the only one I got to visit this time. Many tropical American birds lived inside, notably several hummingbird species (which I didn't get any photos of). Most conspicuous was this sunbittern.

I know I was trying to photograph something (a tanager, perhaps) here, but the foliage got in the way.