San Antonio Zoo and Aquarium (Part 1)

While on our trip, we went to the San Antonio Zoo. This was a great zoo–perhaps top five. We had great weather.

I also tried something new. I declared my Rhodia Unlimited notebook my “zoo journal.” This has solved a problem for me: remembering what I’m taking pictures of. I’m good at identifying cats, but some things I’m less good at. This time, I took notes. This has resulted in more pictures than I’ve previously managed. I’m actually going to split this into three posts: cats, birds (which San Antonio had an amazing collection), and “other.” I’m going to start with “other,” as a general zoo post.

As I said, this was a fun zoo, and a great one to go to. I definitely recommend it.

Coming up, cats and birds…
The aquarium had several small fish. The cuttlefish was interesting.

And I always like lionfish.

It’s a pretty kid-friendly zoo.

Perhaps my favorite aquatic exhibit was the hippopotamus. Hippos spend a good chunk of their time in the water. San Antonio set up their enclosure as an aquarium. You could get right up to them, and see them swimming.

Definitely the best hippopotamus exhibit I’ve ever seen.

They had a good yard for elephants.

They had a southern white rhino. They didn’t explicitly say it was “southern,” just a white rhino. I determined that it was not a Northern White Rhino by process of elimination. It made me sad that they really don’t have to specify.

Okapi look like a zebra/horse hybrid. However, they are more closely related to giraffe.

For comparison, here are their zebras.

A Speke’s Gazelle. I almost said “mmmmmmm.” Perhaps I’ve been hanging around cheetahs too much.

Small warthogs are also prey of cheetahs, though I’m not sure they’d take this one on.

The porcupine was having lunch.

Meanwhile, the fossas where having a siesta.

Not sure what this turtle meeting was about.

Not only was there a yellow-footed rock wallaby, but there was a joey in her pocket.

The last thing we saw were tortoises, which were estimated to be 80-90 years old.

This is the first of three parts. Part two covers the bird collection, and part three looks at the San Antonio Zoo’s cats.