Nature is a state of war. Giraffes grow ever taller to get the leaves. Trees grow ever taller to get away from the giraffes.

You’d think that they’d start working on wings but, as it turns out, flying takes a lot of energy. Digesting leaves to get that energy requires a long digestive tract, which makes for heavier animals. The heavier they are, the more energy they need to fly, and so the fight never ends.

The trees could evolve a poison to keep giraffes away, but the more complex a molecule is, the more energy it takes to make and that energy can be spent on growing taller instead. Also, historically, plants that make poisons aren’t all that effective. Some animals just turn them into spices.

The giraffes could evolve to pursue a high-energy food source, but to do so, they’d have to get smaller because there just aren’t that many nuts and insects around and, if they become carnivorous, faster to catch their prey. However, as soon as they start doing that, they’ll starve to death, not being able to reach the leaves that the trees try to keep away from them.

So they remain, locked in an extremely slow battle, until one, or both, of them fade away.

I was going to make a joke here about deodorant so I started running some Google image searches and queries for things like “famous deodorant commercials”.

After about ten minutes, I have concluded that the industry of … let’s call it “scent marketing” … it just awful. The ads are undeniably creative, but these amazingly brilliant people are spending their time making stunningly produced ads that, at their core, promote violence and rape.

So, instead, enjoy this picture of rhinoceroses and then go install AdBlock Plus because ads are terrible things.

You have activated the emergency organic procyonid metronome.

Please state the nature of the musical emergency

Being a zookeeper means:

* Getting up very early
* Getting quite messy often (literally) shoveling shit
* Working long hours
* Constantly being on call
* Following extremely specific rules around compliance and safety
* Meeting some of the stupidest humans and being forced to treat them as guests
* Having to making detailed observations about animals on a daily basis

So why would anyone choose to be a zookeeper?

Disappointed to have let down the feline community.

The following is a selection of words that can be used to describe cats, according to Words to Use.

active, agile, alert, beautiful, bossy, calm, chill, clever, courageous, crafty, cuddly, curious, energetic, furry, gentle, giant, graceful, handsome, intelligent, perfect, pouncing, pretty, queenly, regal, sleek, smart, sneaky, spry, sultry, superior, sure-footed, wild, wonderful

Horses are naturally dramatic.

Turns out that giraffes and ravens like the same food.

Also turns out that ravens aren’t comfortable around giraffes and will just flap around until the giraffe has had its fill.

The New Guinea singing dog is a wild dog from (shock of shocks) New Guinea. They have a special method of howling that is more melodic than the dogs you’re used to. They are hard to see in the wild but, since they are dogs, they breed decently in captivity.

And if you are a zookeeper, you get to play pattycake with them.

This photo is for Alan, who didn’t think you could get decent ocelot photos in that exhibit.

Turns you you can. It’s not easy, but you can.

Just taaking an aardvark for waalkies.

I hate it when an oryx photobombs my pictures of ducks.

Another thing you get to do on the special excursions (though this one is more common) is feed apples to rhinos.

It’s hard to properly frame a photo when you’re worrying about getting your hand bitten off (even when you know, intellectually, that they don’t really do that).

Interesting fact about grey animals. You can hue-shift the entire photo and they just stay the same.

Or I took a side trip to an alien world.

Believe what you will.

When you go behind the scenes, you get to pet these guys too.

You also get licked a lot and get purple oil all over your hands (it’s a natural sunblock that they create).

If you pay for a behind-the-scenes tour at the San Diego Safari Park, you’d get to see this too.

Then you’d get to pet her.