Zoo Photos
Trip Start
Jan 28, 2008
1
5
28
Trip End
Feb 08, 2008
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Buenos Aires,
Argentina
Thursday, January 31, 2008
A couple of wild pets in the BA zoo
The zoological gardens were more than gardens and more than a zoo as these photos will attest. In combination it was a huge site with much to see; taken separately it can not compete with a stand alone garden or zoo. No matter how one sees it, it is a beautiful, calm and quiet respite from the street noises of BA. The two "Wild pets" that we saw almost immediately on entering stumped us as they would not show us their identity cards or passports no matter how many peanuts we offered them - they even refused a Starbucks Cafe Latte! We had assumed from the description on the map given us that they may have been carpinchos an amphibious little guy native to those parts. It wasn't until we got back to Canada and put out an 'all points bulletin' to world travelers (well, a few friends of ours) that we started to get some feedback. The two most well traveled: John A and Michael G quickly confirmed that it was not a carpy-type thingie but rather, the Mara from the Caviidae family. Note:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caviidae
It is native to Brazil. When we saw the hind legs we thought it was a type of pygmy kangaroo crossed somewhere with a beaver, rat and mule! It certainly looked something mutant - but this pair grew on us after a while and then stopped sitting around, moved their legs and WALKED, like any normal animal, showing no signs of rabbit/kangaroo hopping ability or inclination. No wonder we were curious. Anyway, the reason for dwelling on this tale is that, not much later our four year old granddaughter, Tessa on seeing the photo on our computer, exclaimed "that is a Caviidae!" Blown away by this, but also realizing that she IS a veritable prodigy when it comes knowledge about animals (living on a farm and totally attracted to them), it turned out that she knew about them: "'cause I seem them on animal channel on t.v. !!" What we missed when were kids! Our 'blackberries' we had to eat and our animal channel was changing the cat litter!
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