Philadelphia - The Philadelphia Zoo

Home to so many other innovations, Philadelphia is also the site of the nation's first zoo.

http://www.philadelphiazoo.org/

Like almost every zoo we have been to, there was a carousel, but there were also swan boats and a hot air balloon, which has been less common.

Something else that we found interesting were the walkways that kept crossing overhead. The original land set aside for the zoo doesn't really allow for expansion, so when they needed more room for their animals to explore, they found this innovative way of doing it. We saw the gorilla taking advantage of it.

Of course the real reason we go is to look at animals, and we found many.

There best exhibit may have been the primates. One thing we learned from the signage is that orangutans build a new nest every night. We have seen blankets and newspapers and other nesting materials before, but this was the first time I saw the context given.

There were also smaller monkeys, including two that were rolling around and chasing each other, which I could only capture as a blur, but this is the moment when another monkey came and told them to knock it off.

 Other animals that move around too much to get good pictures included the playful otters, but a few other animals gave me some good shots.

I love outdoor penguin habitats. I worried about the temperatures being too warm for them the first time I saw it in San Francisco, but I have seen it a few places now and it seems to work out.

Aardvarks are nocturnal.

There were two other animals whose inclusion I really appreciated. One is the Black-footed cat, the smallest African cat and possibly the cutest.

The other was the okapi. There aren't a lot of places that have them, and it was exciting to see one in person.

Overall I thought it was a pretty good zoo, and yes it is accredited by the AZA. There was something else notable about it though, and next week we will talk about that.

See you then.