A Taste for Travel

Hi Friends, Bhakti+Jagger here today.

Welcome to the Spanish take on a zoo! This is the Bioparc of Valencia it was smaller than we thought it would be, but so cool! Very few walls, fences or obvious enclosures to be found.

We set out with our friends to romp around and explore the Bioparc. Since this is a school day for the kids, we set them on a field trip adventure to find 15 new facts about the animals. Jagger and his friends ran all over and ended up making it a competition and collecting a whopping (drum roll please)….29 new interesting facts!

So, here they are:

1. A maribou is a scavenger.
2. Each mongoose group has a specific odor to identify friends vs enemies.
3. Giraffes need a larger heart (10kg) in order to pump blood all the way up their neck to their brains.
4. The lion’s mane helps to protect it’s neck during battles for dominance.
5. The hyrax is closely related to elephants and manatees. (See a picture to be shocked by this one)
6. The quills on the tail of a porcupine are hallow and can produce a rattling sound (like a snake) to deter predator.
7. Flamingos are filter feeders.
8. The fosa is one of the most dominant predators on the island of Madagascar.
9. Sitatunga are excellent swimmers that can go under water except for their nose and eyeballs.
10. The male drill’s upper canines can exceed 5cm.
11. The black crowned crane does an elaborate dance to impress his mate.
12. The red river hog is the most colorful swine in Africa.
13. A silverback gorilla can eat a large head of romaine in less than 30 seconds (learned through observation).
14. The white naped mangal uses it’s white eyelids to communicate.
15. Gorillas spend most hours of their days eating and napping.
16. Hippos were thought to sweat blood but actually sweat a red substance that serves as a sunscreen.
17. If the temperature is 32-35.5c a Nile crocodile will be born male. At any other temperature (higher or lower) it will be born female.
18. The dyeing poison dart frog was named after a legendary potion used to turn a green feather red.
19. The blue poison dart frog sweats a toxic substance because of the type of ants it eats.
20. The Mallorcan midwife toad male carry his mates eggs on their backs for 3-9 weeks.
21. The depth of the tanaga-gumui lake prevents the water from mixing.
22. Hippos will not eat certain species of fish.
23. Hippos have an 8 month gestation period.
24. The word amphibian means “two lives” because they live both on land and in water.
25. The sharp ribbed salamander that has cubicles between it’s ribs that secrete a poison.
26. The tomato frog is an insectovore.
27. The Kitum cave is an elephant graveyard.
28. Elephants knock down walls of the Kitum caves for the minerals contains in them especially the salt.
29. The Bioparc Valencia is super fun!

We also stayed for lunch at the Serengeti and ate paella and pasta surrounded by animals. It was especially amazing to see the lioness on the rock overlooking the rest of the animals. We marveled that she doesn’t seem interested in leaping off the rock to get her own lunch of zebra and giraffe! Either these animals are well fed and happy, or there was more space between these areas than it looked like to us.