The Ménagerie du Jardin des Plantes in Paris

For the last two weeks I have been writing about my trip to Paris, when I visited a fantastic bone museum with a collection of dinosaurs. This week I am going to write about the Ménagerie du Jardin des Plantes, which is the oldest public zoo in the world, and which is in the same park as the museum.

As soon as we left the Galerie de paléontologie et d'anatomie comparée we walked over the park to the zoo. It was mum's idea and it was a brilliant one. It's not the biggest zoo in Paris - that one is called the Zoo Bois de Vincennes - but it has lots of animals in it.

↑ These were huge tortoises, which were some of the first animals which we saw. I'm not sure what type they are, though. They had grassy and sandy areas to live in.

↑ This is a type of wildcat called a Pallas's Cat, and it was named after the man who first wrote about it. It hunts at twilight, and comes from central Asia. 

↑ This is a Eastern Grey Kangaroo but it was just lying in the sun when I saw it.

↑ This is an Emu. It comes from Australia and they can run up to 30mph.

↑ This camel was in isolation, but I couldn't read the sign to find out why.

↑ There was a big building but it was being refurbished so it only had a few big cats in. This one is a Chinese Leopard.

↑ One of the other ones was a snow leopard.

↑ There was a raccoon but it didn't hang around long for a picture. It comes from North America, and they are supposed to be intelligent. They have a thick fur coat to keep them warm in winter.

 ↑ There were some building that you could go in when you could see the inside of the enclosures. This is a orangutan from Borneo on the inside part. It had ropes and a hammock to swing around on.

 ↑ This is a Markhor which has the most amazing horns I've seen ! It is a type of mountain goat, and people hunt it because they think the horns can be turned into medicine. There are only 2,500 left in the world.

↑ There are bharal which are also called Himalayan blue sheep. They get eaten by snow leopards.

↑ There parrots are Military Macaws. They are endangered but a lot of people have them as pets.

 ↑ There was a whole building to do with reptiles and turtles. This is a helmeted turtle and it comes from Africa.

↑ My mum didn't believe this was a real crocodile because it was lying so still. It is a Nile crocodile.

↑ This is a West African Gaboon viper. Its Latin name is bitis gabonica rhinoceros because it has horns on its nose like a rhino.

↑ This is a Blue Poison Dart Frog. It comes from Brazil, and it has a poison which can paralyze anything which tries to attack it.

↑ This is a type of mountain goat called a West Causican Tur. They get eaten by wolves and lynxes, and there are only about 6,000 left in the world.

↑ I don't think this was part of the zoo, but it was a pretty duck called a mandarin. You don't get them in Scotland.

↑ When we stopped for lunch, we found a bit of grass next to a fence. When we looked up we saw the emu looking at us !

This is the last post I'm going to write about my trip to Paris. Next week I'm going to write more about my bones.

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