Monday, November 9, 2009

Things We Learned At The Cleveland Zoo Saturday

Last Saturday we did something spontaneous again because it was such a nice day. We went to the Cleveland Zoo to see the baby Red Pandas but learned a lot of things while we were there.

Red Pandas


The baby red pandas were inside the Primate/Aquatics building and were resting when we got there after playing an hour. They had stuffed toys in their exhibit that they played with. We were sad to learn though that they will be transferred to some other zoos as part of the conservation project because there are so few left.

Poop


Even in the gift shop we learned that paper can be made from elephant poop! We bought a calendar with paper made from elephant poop! It doesn't smell at all which surprised me so we bought one! The elephant exhibit is being remodeled and won't be done until 2011. We miss our elephants but once it's done, we'll have even more than the three we had before!

This is a note at the bottom of one of the calendar pages about recycling the poop in the spring:

Octopus


Did you know octopus have beaks--the only hard spot on them? The docent had one in a jar that we could see close up.

Giraffe


How much does one of the bit giraffes weigh? We were shocked when we heard a big giraffe could weigh up to 4200 pounds!

Animal Inventory Website


The zoo docent also told us about the International Species Information System, www.isis.org, which is a site that shows what animals are in what zoos around the world.

Teeth


Shark teeth are pointy and in layers. If a tooth breaks, another pops up to replace it in 20 minutes. Wish we had teeth like that! We saw the skull of another fish that eats plants and its teeth were flat like ours (can't remember what kind).

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9 comments:

Daisy said...

It would be cool to have shark teeths! We would never have to brush!

Melissa said...

how neat! I had no idea red pandas existed!

Twincerely,Olga said...

stopping by from SITs! interesting facts there! I have visited your other blog! stop by

Karen & Gerard Zemek said...

Anonymous: Thanks for stopping by and glad you liked what you found here.

Daisy: I agree, also would save people trips to the dentist!

Melissa: They are endangered, I think the docent told us there were only about 100 in all the zoos across the USA. They are very cute but look more like raccoons than panda bears.

Twincerely,Olga: Thanks for visiting. Hope you will come again. I'm on my way to visit yours.

Danae Hudson said...

That is so crazy that the zoo sells things made about of poo...and yet, kind of awesome. If I could, that's what I would do with all of our cat poo.

Stopping by from SITS!

The Redhead Riter said...

I love giraffes! 4200 lbs. is a bit much huh!

stopping by from sits and going to look for you follow button ♥

Karen & Gerard Zemek said...

Divine Mrs D: I find it kid of amusing that people actually buy it for fertilizer--it stinks SO much! Pretty cool though that something decent can actually be made from it I think!

Redhead Riter: Thanks for following me! I moved my follow button up higher so people don't have to search so hard for it. I'd love to get 100 followers by the end of the year, but really, I'm happy with 65. I never thought I'd have even that many when I started out.

mub said...

Holy cow that thing about shark teeth is both amazing and insane!

RebeccaMom said...

awesome stuff! I learned something here too :) thanks for stopping by my blog on my SITS day!

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