The Toledo Zoo is home to what may be the largest salt-water crocodile in the western hemisphere. He was flown here from Australia in 2013, and at that time was 17 feet long and weighed approximately 1500 pounds. He's estimated (from his size) to be between 40 and 50 years old.
He was hanging out in the far end of his pond from me.
Do you remember me noting, when I was at the Denver Zoo last November, that when the zoo is nearly empty of other visitors the animals notice you a lot more?
It seemed to me this guy locked eyes on me, and came right over near where I was. Not in a threatening way. He just saw me, locked eyes, and came over.
Maybe I reminded him of someone who fed him in the past? Or? Who knows............
Nothing he did was threatening in the least. He just swam on over, deliberate but unhurried. At the closest, I was maybe 8-10 feet from him, with plexi in between. But some part of the back of my mind was very clear that having him pay attention to me was very probably not in my best interest............... Not like alarm bells, but more like a voice from my evolutionary past saying "Step away from the enormous reptile. We have seen this show before, and it has not ended well for the monkey."
Before we walk away, have a look at the size of his eye, compared to the size of his body. Without having the two next to each other, I would guess that that little alligator we looked at in a previous post had eyes about the same size as this much bigger individual. Just noticing...........
And one more thing, before we walk away -- this is the ceiling over the croc, reflected by his pond. I like the colors, and the squiggly lines........
Red panda. Eating bamboo, I believe. These guys are the exception to this post's "BIG boy" theme. Wikipedia says they weigh 11 pounds, but I would have guessed about twice that (given my experience with corgi dogs).
The cousins were indoors. We saw one gal working on building a perfect nest from shredded paper. It seemed that she knew exactly the consistency she wanted, and she was diligently fluffing and arranging and fluffing some more. Someone else was taking lots of pics of her, and was in the way, so I didn't get any pics.
Here are some more orangs. There is a family group in this room. Mom, Dad, 9-yr-old daughter, and baby boy (born last July).
Mom and baby. The older three were given treats while we were there. Long skinny cardboard tubes (like wrapping paper might have been furled around), with popcorn and primate chow inside).
This is a terrible pic, but you can see the tube, and you can imagine that her left hand is full of good things to eat. (Those maroon waves at the bottom of the next image are letters painted elsewhere, reflected on the plexiglas that is between us and the orangs. I have done a lot of messing with these pics, to try to compensate for some of the glare and reflection................)
Another advantage to visiting the zoo when hardly anyone is there is that if you encounter a keeper, you may get to hear what they have to say. The care-taker of these individuals said this gal is a good momma, and that this dad is an excellent daddy. This baby is not quite big enough to understand peek-a-boo, but the adults are ready to play with him (trying out peek-a-boo from time to time, to see if he has figured out it is a game).
Mom, with a pinch between her cheek and gum, looking at junior.
This area is arranged so there is plexiglas ceiling over the people who are visiting. This next image is looking straight up at the daughter's left foot as she sat over our heads.
Here is dad. Hooray for fire hose, which is flexible, and kind to the hand, while sturdy enough to stand up to someone as strong as this guy! There is much fire hose in these enclosures. Some of it facilitates movement from one part of the room to another, and some is clearly meant as nesting spots.
I would always guess someone with a face like this was not a predator, nor someone who faced a lot of predation over evolutionary time. His eyes are really deep in the cone of his face; he can't see to the sides very well at all.
This is the daughter. She's got chow in a plastic bottle.
This is dad's hand, draped over some fire hose. You can't tell how big it was. It was huge. I bet four of my fingers could fit within the circumference of one of his.
Here is their next-door neighbor. (With some nest-looking fire hose behind him.)
Where he was sitting, there was ledge for him, on his side of the plexi, and ledge for one of us, on our side. The keeper said it would be polite to sit near him, if we kept our back to him, and just flicked a second of eye-contact from time to time, to show him we knew he was there, in a respectful way.
So I did. How often do you get to sit right next to a full-grown silverback? His face was incredibly wide. Twice as wide as mine, I bet. He had a great deal of presence. I imagine sitting next to him might be a bit like sitting next to the heavy-weight champion of the human world........... Or next to the biggest guy on the team that wins the super bowl...............
Only more so.
His keeper, who said she had raised him, stood and translated his behavior as I sat there. She said he was very comfortable, sitting there with me there.
We made eye contact several times, but very briefly, as I quickly looked away. Staring is rude for gorillas, just as it is for humans.....................
In contrast to my back-brain's reaction to the croc, I got no warning here. Whatever that may (or may not!) mean.
What a cool thing to get to do...................
How often do you get to interact with someone from such a near part of the family tree?
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