While in D.C., Gabriel requested that we visit a zoo to see reptiles. We had been discussing locomotion, muscle-attachment points, and speculative anatomical reconstructions for days. He wanted to re-view how that looks on a variety of living animals.
The most famous zoo on our path was in da Bronx.
The BZ is awesome for its architecture alone. Here, the rhino house.Fabulous stone-carving.The primate house.The first animal we encountered was a most unusual theropod. Peacocks freely roam the grounds of the Bronx Zoo.In the Reptile House, we saw snakes, frogs, turtles, and monitor lizards. Here, the Black Tree Monitor Lizard.Frogs were hosted here because they could be kept warm and moist year-round. These sweet little Kihansi Spray Toads are extinct in the wild, and the Zoo is working to restore habitat and re-introduce them to the wild. Yay Zoo! That is a noble new mission for zoological institutions!…actually, not a new mission at all, as this plaque testifies. People at this zoo have been involved in species conservation for at least 115 years.Back to reptiles: one of the smaller varieties of the Komodo Dragon monitor lizard.Butaan monitor lizard.Both the forelegs and rear legs on lizards stick out to the sides, like Permian tetrapods. Based on locomotion, dinosaurs were further evolved as land animals.…Which makes this sign problematic. The general consensus today seems to be that dinosaurs are not the forerunners of reptiles. Unfortunately, this is a huge, photo-coated sign that would probably be very expensive to replace. In the future, I hope that zoos and museums can afford to replace fixed signage with flatscreen displays that are easier to update. Evolving information (yes I own that pun) and video can also be added to enhance the learning of us visitors.
