Most raindrops are of some interest, but this particular one is fascinating.
Tag Archives: Denver Zoo – Denver
Comet (Calloplesiops altivelis)
Contrary to what most people believe the comet’s tail always points away from the sun and doesn’t always show the direction it is moving.
Blue-breasted Kingfisher (Halcyon malimbica)
He’s not just the owner of Beakclub for Birds, he’s also a client.
Bighorn Sheep (Ovis canadensis)
Everyone needs a pillow.
Western Green Mamba (Dendroaspis viridis)
Q: How can’t you measure a snake?
A: In feet.
Q: What do you call a snake who works for the government?
A: A civil serpent.
Q: What do you call a snake that’s very polite?
A: A civil serpent.
Q: Why did the zoo’s breeding program have to replace all their plastic pedestals with wooden ones?
A: Because adders can only multiply with a log table.
Q: Why did the snake see Gone With The Wind in the theater?
A: She really liked the book.
Q: How did the snakes get out of jail?
A: They scaled the wall.
Ha!
Titi
At night, when the zoo is closed, the titi monkeys make edgy films on old 16mm cameras that they buy off of eBay.
Sign
The fact that animals bite you when you do things wrong should be warning enough, frankly.
Sign
Not only was this a common enough problem to require a sign, it was common enough to require the sign to be in two languages *and* needed a hotline.
Granted, this is from a state that recently decided to legalize certain passtimes.
Mudskipper (Periophthalmini)
“Sure. Just sit there and breathe the air like it’s no big deal. SOME OF US AREN’T SO PRIVILEGED.”
Yellow-Banded Poison Dart Frog (Dendrobates leucomelas)
Many of the bends you see in branches are made by heavy frogs.
Whitemouth Moray Eel (Gymnothorax meleagris)
Fish can only swim into a moray in one direction.
Siamese Crocodile (Crocodylus siamensis)
It takes a lot of effort to train a crocodile but in the end, when they stand still for the saddle, it’s worth it.
Siamese Crocodile (Crocodylus siamensis)
Hawk Headed Parrot (Deroptyus accipitrinus)
This is a hawk headed parrot eating a strawberry. Of course, the parrot doesn’t really have a hawk’s head. Accipitriformes and psittaciformes are two entire different orders of birds. Birds, of course, aren’t really birds. They’re avian dinosaurs. The word “dinosaur”, being coined in 1842 to mean “fearfully-great lizard”, of which the animals we call dinosaurs were most definitely not, at least on the “lizard” part. How great they were is rather subjective.
Also, a strawberry isn’t really a berry. It is an aggregate accessory fruit.
This post* brought to you by the English language.
* We now call a stream of electrons that make up words and/or pictures “posts” after the large wooden things we used to put into the ground for people to nail paper to. Thank you, linguistic evolution**.
** The word, “evolution”, of course coming from Latin and French, referring both to military maneuvers and the act of unrolling a scroll***.
*** Which, when unrolled, were sometimes nailed to posts*.
Mimic Poison Frog (Ranitomeya imitator)
It’s called a mimic poison frog not because it’s not poisonous, but because they’re so small that they don’t produce much.
Grevys Zebra (Equus grevyi)
Skills must be practiced to attain competence.
Mudskipper (Periophthalmini)
When the fins come up, stuff is about to go down.
Gorilla (Hominidae)
Patience.
Golden Lion Tamarin (Leontopithecus rosalia)
His phone was, like, right there a minute ago.
Fossa (Cryptoprocta ferox)
You can tell, these are the most vicious predators in Madagascar, right?