London Zoo, aka Zoological Society of London

Two zoo visits in a month! In April I went to Chester Zoo. In May, I went to London Zoo, now known as the Zoological Society of London. I had a meeting with Sergio Henriques, chair of the Spider and Scorpion Specialist Group at IUCN. He is also Red List Authority Coordinator. He contacted me as he is interested in getting Malaysian Liphistius spiders onto the Red List. Liphistius kanthan is already on the Red List. See my blog about Liphistius.

After the meeting I was able to go around the zoo. I don't think I have been here since I was a child. From Baker Street tube station I walked through Regents Park to the zoo.

A carpet of daisies

In the zoo I spent a few hours walking round. Ring tailed lemur enjoying beetroot -

Okapi -

Meerkat on sentry duty, checking the sky for predators -

Asian small clawed otter -

Komodo dragon -

Turquoise dwarf gecko

Gidgee spiny-tailed skink -

King cobra -

Serval -

Humboldt penguin

Zoological Society of London website.

Chester zoo

After a week in Llandudno, North Wales, I stopped in Chester for a night. My main purpose was to see the zoo. I always watch the C4 TV programme Secret Life of the Zoo.

Chester Zoo website. They say they are the most visited zoo in the UK, which surprises me as I always assumed London Zoo would have that ranking. Chester zoo is very involved with breeding projects and conservation.

I bought a combination ticket from Chester railway station, that gave me entry to the zoo plus return bus fare for £24. It was school holidays when I went so the place was busy.

It was a sunny day but there was a cold wind and most animals were indoors. I don't blame them. I tried not to take too many photos and concentrated more on the animals from Malaysia / SE Asia. Firstly I headed to the elephants as these have been well documented on the TV programme. They are Asian elephants -

Another visitor -

I went in the butterfly house which was nice and warm. The place was crowded with families and I didn't see too many butterflies, in fact I think there are more in Horniman's butterfly house.

A Giant Walking Leaf from Malaysian Borneo -

It was hard to photograph the Sumatran orangutans behind the glass -

Caribbean flamingos with shocking pink feathers. Pity I didn't see any in the wild in the Caribbean last month.

The capybara were out sunning themselves. They are the world's largest rodent and come from S. America -

 

Visayan warty pigs are critically endangered in their native Phillipines -

The Malayan tapirs were indoors

This sunbear from SE Asia was constantly on the move as it played with a piece of wood -

The babirusa were of interest to me as these featuring in cave drawings in the Maros area of Sulawesi Indonesia. See my blog on the Sulawesi paintings and Cave of  Hands.

The black rhino from Africa was also indoors. It is critically endangered in the wild.-

Unfortunately many other animals were indoors or were hiding in their shelters.