If there was one exhibit that was leaps and bound popular than anything else, Artie the Crocodile was the odds-on favorite to sign an autograph if he were human. He loved the attention, he loved to put on a show, and the crowds loved him. You gotta admit crocs and gators have an impressive amount of strength for having tiny arms and legs. Artie is so famous, he's made appearances on popular Animal Planet shows. Like I said, attention seeker.
As we got out of the cars following our arrival, the gates were well opened. The entrance and ticket booths were recently renovated to make you feel like you were walking in the mouth of an animal. Artie's mouth, an eagle beak, a bear's mouth, a lion's mouth, and a hippo's mouth were your options (great way to grab a small child's attention). As we walked through the bear's mouth for our tickets, we noticed a student discount with proper ID for Dottie. Of course I paid the fare though she tried to quarrel with me because I had just paid for her birthday dinner and this was supposed to be a thanks for doing so. But she didn't argue so as to not cause a scene and because she was looking forward to seeing the lemurs.
"We should go to the new exhibits first. They're going to be packed if we wait to see them."
"Aw man, I wanna see MY lemurs."
"Yeah but then, you'll just be roaming around here half bored. At least walk out not feeling satisfied so soon."
"I guess, I hadn't thought of that." She had wisdom beyond her years, but there were still many things that I would counsel.
Your options are the Eastern European Foothills, the Saharan Oasis, and the Giraffe Junction."
"Saharan Oasis," she said without hesitation. And that was probably was the best choice as it was closest to the rear of the zoo and then we could meander our way back to the front. There were some interesting mammals in this exhibit, but I didn't know quite which of them were here.
"I don't suppose we should have went to Skaneateles Lake," I snidely lamented.
"OMG look at that thing, it's sooo cute. I want one!" Of course that would happen as we made it to the exhibit. "It's a... fennec fox."
"They're funny lookin'. I'd heard of them before but I didn't know that's what you were talking about. I thought you were peering in the general direction of the sand cats."
"Those are even cuter!" Me and my big mouth. Next thing I knew, my place was going to become an SPCA branch without my permission.
"Even if I liked cats, the creatures or the musical, I'm allergic."
"Fine-uh." She wasn't pleased, but she knew pets were going to be hard to maintain.
"Thank goodness those hyenas are separated from the gazelles. That's trouble waiting to happen."
"You're not wrong." We actually proceeded through the exhibit quickly and the giraffes just so happened to be next door. "Hey, I thought all giraffes have the same type of spots just in different areas instead of different shapes."
"So the two you see here are the most common regional patterns."
"You know this how?"
"Spare reading and that's the only part of African geography that I don't need help with... anyhow, the ones that look like they're the most uniform in shape and smooth in contour is called a reticulated pattern and are usually in the area of Somalia and Ethiopia. The other type is the only one more frequent and those are called masai giraffes near Kenya and Tanzania by Kilimanjaro."
"I'm just amazed how they grow so big so quickly."
"I'm sure giraffes weren't always that long necked. But having short necks like ours is rare still."
"I'd be less surprised if you could tell me blindfolded about the foothill exhibit since that's your family root even without having seen it yet."
"That doesn't mean anything," I pleaded trying to both play myself down and make her feel valued.
"Well you'd better know everything, or your family might disown you!"
"Hardy-har-har. That's not how that works," I quipped back.
~~~
As we made our way to the northwestern most part of the zoo was the foothill display. I was curious to see how much of the animals Nickie had seen in person when he spent time visiting his family in that part of Europe. The first couple animals he recognized right away.
"This first grouping here is a dog breed called Sharploninets [siic]. They kinda got lazy and named them after the Sar Mountains where they roam. Over there is a Balkan lynx and are critically endangered. They have two of the 93 that remain here and are the largest cats in that region of Europe. Both the Sharploninets and the lynx are featured on local currencies as well as peacocks found in the region.
"Peacocks? OMG nick you HAVE to take me!"
"In time, Dottiekins. In time. Maybe when you finish your certification." Now I don't know what it was, but anytime he called me Dottiekins, it made me blush.
