Feb 112012
 

“Sand cats are becoming extinct because camels step on them”

“Nyani is the baboon word for Swahili.”

(This line, or rather the correct, inverted form, was spoken as the train passed by Nyani restaurant, named for its proximity to the baboon exhibit. For a while, some of the narrators were following it facetiously with: “And speaking of baboons, that building on your right is the administration building.” This came to an abrupt stop one day when the director walked out of the back door just in time to hear that line and see an entire trainload of people turn to look at him.)

“An ostrich lays a thirty-pound egg and can run up to four miles an hour.”

“Pygmo hippy” (pygmy hippo)

“Black-faced gay kangaroo” (gray)

“Great paranoid mountain dog” (Great Pyrenees)

And last, but not least, was the keeper who reported on his daily log that two female eland had been fighting and one had gotten “poked in the virginia.”

Feb 112012
 

African buffalo
   Water buffalo, bull

African wild dog
   Hyena

Antelope
   Cantaloupe, deer

Binturong
   Bink-a-bonk

Budgerigar (parakeet)
   Green bat

Caracal
   Mountain lion

Chimpanzee
   Cheetah, chipmunk

Collared peccary
   Wild boar, wild pig, guinea pig, porcupine, colored peccary, Colorado peccary, baby elephant

Coatimundi
   Raccoon, anteater, hyena, condominium

Colobus monkey
   Skunk

Dik-dik
   Baby deer

Emu
   Ostrich

Hyrax
   Groundhog

Keeper
   Great American hoser

Muntjac
   Baby deer

Okapi
   Hyena, zebra

Prairie dog
   Groundhog

Serval
   Cervix

Skunk
   Ferret

Spiny echidna
   Spiny enchilada

Tamarin
   Tambourine, baby monkey

Tapir
   Anteater

Tasmanian devil
   Transylvanian devil, transmission devil

Toco toucan
   Taco toucan, Froot Loops bird

Touraco
   Taco

Wombat
   Tapir

Young gorilla
   Chimpanzee, chipmunk

Young swan (cygnet)
   Coronet