Peoria Zoo
Dec. 4th, 2012 12:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
guppiecatThis is the zoo I went to when I was little. It's changed a lot in 30 years, but it does well for a smaller city zoo. When I went there all the time, they had puffins. They don't have puffins anymore, but they also don't keep the lions and tigers in tiny little pacing cages. This is also the zoo I think of when I think of big snakes. You know that scene in Harry Potter when the snake gets out of the cage at the zoo? This is the zoo I envision.
The set is here, and the photos were taken in 2010. It was not a dedicated phototrip, as I was there with my parents, but I think the photos turned out decent anyway.
Here is my favorite:
I like this because it is an example of how photos can be rescued. The lighting was horrible, and the sea lion was far too dark in some areas and overexposed in others. I couldn't save the colour, but I think that it works well as a high contrast black and white.
White Rhino - It's hard for a photograph to convey mass. Even when taking photos of hippos, elephants and rhinos, which we know are huge, they wind up being small enough to fit on our computer screens. In this one, thought, I think you can a sense of just how massive these guys are. Sure they're pointy, but the impressive bit is how stompy they can be. These guys are giants.
Gazelle - The native Africans like to hunt gazelles because they are the most flavorful of all the African game. The light brown bits taste like caramel. The dark, chocolate. The white is obviously vanilla. They're so yummy, they even taste themselves.
Lion on a rock on a Monday morning, oh what a terrible sight to see,
'Dabtoes' for'd and the Dustmen bok, sitting there starin' at a 'lion on a rock'.
Hey -oh, lion on a rock, Oy -oh, lion on a rock.
Hey -oh, lion on a rock, Oy -oh, lion on a rock.
Mongoose Lemur - My first sighting of a mongoose lemur. They're life long enemies of snake lemurs, whose war formed the core story of Rikki Tikki Strepsirrhini.
Chinese Alligator - These are tiny alligators. They are so tiny they could fit in your pocket*. I like this one for the colours and the little hat. I need to take more photos in the Fall.
* rather large pockets required
Cotton-headed Tamarin - It's hard to prepare for an astronavigation exam when you've covered with hair.
Cotton-headed Tamarin - Yes, that was a Red Dwarf reference. I am geek.
Meerkat - "Why, this is hell, nor am I out of it: think'st thou that I, that saw the face of God, and tasted the eternal joys of heaven, am not tormented with ten thousand hells, in being depriv'd of everlasting bliss?"
New Caledonia Giant Gecko - This is how their feet work. Also, realize that their name implies that there is also an Old Caledonia Giant Gecko, a New Caledonia Tiny (or normal sized) Gecko and Giant Geckos elsewhere. In fact, these Giant Geckos could be anywhere. Maybe there's one watching you RIGHT NOW. Quick, check your windows!
Black and Rufous Elephant Shrew - These guys have little twitchy noses that are really hard to focus on...
Black and Rufous Elephant Shrew - ...except when they stop moving and you can't see them very well anyway.
Ring Tailed Lemur - I quote from the Book Of Lemur:
"Lemurs (Listeni/ˈliːmər/ LEE-mər) are a clade of strepsirrhine primates endemic to the island of Madagascar. The word "lemur" derives from the word lemures (ghosts or spirits) from Roman mythology and was first used to describe a slender loris due to its nocturnal habits and slow pace, but was later applied to the primates on Madagascar. Although lemurs often are confused with ancestral primates, the anthropoid primates (monkeys, apes, and humans) did not evolve from them; instead, lemurs merely share morphological and behavioral traits with basal primates."
"Today, there are nearly 100 species of lemurs, and most of those species have been discovered or promoted to full species status since the 1990s; however, lemur taxonomic classification is controversial and depends on which species concept is used. Even the higher-level taxonomy is disputed, with some experts preferring to place most lemurs within the infraorder Lemuriformes, while others prefer Lemuriformes to contain all living strepsirrhines, placing all lemurs in superfamily Lemuroidea and all lorises and galagos in superfamily Lorisoidea."
Hope that's cleared everything up for you.
Lion and Fly - You wouldn't have seen the fly if I hadn't pointed it out, would you?
The set is here, and the photos were taken in 2010. It was not a dedicated phototrip, as I was there with my parents, but I think the photos turned out decent anyway.
Here is my favorite:
I like this because it is an example of how photos can be rescued. The lighting was horrible, and the sea lion was far too dark in some areas and overexposed in others. I couldn't save the colour, but I think that it works well as a high contrast black and white.
White Rhino - It's hard for a photograph to convey mass. Even when taking photos of hippos, elephants and rhinos, which we know are huge, they wind up being small enough to fit on our computer screens. In this one, thought, I think you can a sense of just how massive these guys are. Sure they're pointy, but the impressive bit is how stompy they can be. These guys are giants.
Gazelle - The native Africans like to hunt gazelles because they are the most flavorful of all the African game. The light brown bits taste like caramel. The dark, chocolate. The white is obviously vanilla. They're so yummy, they even taste themselves.
Lion on a rock on a Monday morning, oh what a terrible sight to see,
'Dabtoes' for'd and the Dustmen bok, sitting there starin' at a 'lion on a rock'.
Hey -oh, lion on a rock, Oy -oh, lion on a rock.
Hey -oh, lion on a rock, Oy -oh, lion on a rock.
Mongoose Lemur - My first sighting of a mongoose lemur. They're life long enemies of snake lemurs, whose war formed the core story of Rikki Tikki Strepsirrhini.
Chinese Alligator - These are tiny alligators. They are so tiny they could fit in your pocket*. I like this one for the colours and the little hat. I need to take more photos in the Fall.
* rather large pockets required
Cotton-headed Tamarin - It's hard to prepare for an astronavigation exam when you've covered with hair.
Cotton-headed Tamarin - Yes, that was a Red Dwarf reference. I am geek.
Meerkat - "Why, this is hell, nor am I out of it: think'st thou that I, that saw the face of God, and tasted the eternal joys of heaven, am not tormented with ten thousand hells, in being depriv'd of everlasting bliss?"
New Caledonia Giant Gecko - This is how their feet work. Also, realize that their name implies that there is also an Old Caledonia Giant Gecko, a New Caledonia Tiny (or normal sized) Gecko and Giant Geckos elsewhere. In fact, these Giant Geckos could be anywhere. Maybe there's one watching you RIGHT NOW. Quick, check your windows!
Black and Rufous Elephant Shrew - These guys have little twitchy noses that are really hard to focus on...
Black and Rufous Elephant Shrew - ...except when they stop moving and you can't see them very well anyway.
Ring Tailed Lemur - I quote from the Book Of Lemur:
"Lemurs (Listeni/ˈliːmər/ LEE-mər) are a clade of strepsirrhine primates endemic to the island of Madagascar. The word "lemur" derives from the word lemures (ghosts or spirits) from Roman mythology and was first used to describe a slender loris due to its nocturnal habits and slow pace, but was later applied to the primates on Madagascar. Although lemurs often are confused with ancestral primates, the anthropoid primates (monkeys, apes, and humans) did not evolve from them; instead, lemurs merely share morphological and behavioral traits with basal primates."
"Today, there are nearly 100 species of lemurs, and most of those species have been discovered or promoted to full species status since the 1990s; however, lemur taxonomic classification is controversial and depends on which species concept is used. Even the higher-level taxonomy is disputed, with some experts preferring to place most lemurs within the infraorder Lemuriformes, while others prefer Lemuriformes to contain all living strepsirrhines, placing all lemurs in superfamily Lemuroidea and all lorises and galagos in superfamily Lorisoidea."
Hope that's cleared everything up for you.
Lion and Fly - You wouldn't have seen the fly if I hadn't pointed it out, would you?
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no subject
Date: 2012-12-04 09:13 pm (UTC):-)
no subject
Date: 2012-12-04 10:14 pm (UTC)My hope is to hire someone to run it for me, but to do that, I have to pay off my new camera and then gather enough cash to run for a few months. Not impossible, but when compared to the costs of moving to Minnesota a year ago, not a priority either.
no subject
Date: 2012-12-04 11:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-04 10:04 pm (UTC)(and thanks for the Red Dwarf explanation - I am differently geeky)
no subject
Date: 2012-12-04 11:31 pm (UTC)