Where the Wild Things Are

CREATURE FEATURE: This afternoon, on a whim, we went to the Woodland Park Zoo with Rick, who had some discount tickets. Count us in, 'cause we're all about discounts, as you know.

As we arrived at the zoo grounds, Rick announced he needed to see the sloth bears, snow leopard, and the grizzly. Let's just say it was Rick's day. All of them were up and about.

The sloth bears were up first. We watched a sloth mom wander around as her two cubs wrestled with one another.

I noticed the mama bear looking into the small cracks of the rocks at one point and asked the kids what they thought that was all about. Annabelle guessed, "She's looking for insects."

Sure 'nuff, they're insect eating mammals. In fact, they have a specially adapted lower lip and palate used for sucking insects.

Given that they're from the Indian subcontinent, yet they're wearing what looks like a super heavy, long fur coat, I had to speculate that maybe it was more like hair than fur - so that they wouldn't get too hot. But what do I know?

We wandered around a bit and saw kangaroos and wallabies and a wallaroos (I'm not making that up).

We also came across some gorgeous Gray Wolves. They looked more white to us, but what do we know? We marveled at how closely they are related to our house dogs, but how far away they are in other respects. 

 We also speculated about how long our lil Havanese would last in the Gray Wolves' enclosure. ...

 They looked so pretty, docile and even domestic, but of course, that's not the case.

We made our way to the snow leopard exhibit. Upon arrival, the big cat was sunning itself at the back of the enclosure, far from us.  Imagine our surprise and delight when it popped up and made a beeline toward us!

 Exciting! It came within a couple feet of us (albeit separated by thick Plexiglas). Pretty kitty!

We also saw an elk with an amazing rack!

The penguins are always a hit, of course. 

At the zoo, the meerkats and komodo dragons are neighbors. 

This meerkat served as sentinel of the group. She was posted way above the rest, keeping lookout, while the others frolicked, slept and so on below.

The komodo dragon looks so serene, but it will eat you alive, given the chance. 

We spent the most time looking at the grizzly bears, who were on the move. 

 Amazing animals, are they.

 Look, it even smiled at us! ;)