Cute Zoo Animal Pictures

The little otters were adorable. The two of them would perch up on this log and look around a little bit and then they would dash off and do a circle through their little pond around the habitat until they paused again to look around.


Seriously they were all jacked up on the Mountain Dew.

This little lizard (aka water dragon) that I'm pointing to is not necessarily cute, but there is a cute story that goes along with seeing him.


There are signs all over asking you not to touch the water dragons (or else you'll get kicked out) and right before we took this picture, there was a family with a 2 year old girl trying to get her picture with it. The girl kept moving closer and closer (giving Josh a near heart-attack), but her dad was telling her 'Don't touch, don't touch. Just sit and look.' And then he started moving down the pathway and left the mom there to get a picture. The first thing out of the mom's mouth was 'Touch it, touch it.' I guess it was her misguided way of trying to get the girl to move closer to it.

I followed instructions a little better and just pointed.

That's Josh feeding a kangaroo along with OUR roo. Kangaroos are both cute and scary - have you seen their claws? Also, if you look in between this roo's legs you can see another leg just kind of hanging out in the air. That would be the joey in the pouch. He decided to crawl in there and not turn around and so his tail and one leg were sticking out. I think that it's about time for that kid to move out.

Now - cutest animals ever.

The koalas looked like big stuffed animals just sitting up in the trees. I could have snuggled up to one.

We even got to pet one later on in the zoo.

I got to pet this one too, but see that pole running across? That pole kind of blocked my face from the picture. But it didn't ruin my excitement of getting to pet such a sweet animal.

Australia Zoo

We spent right at 6 hours at the Australia Zoo on Saturday. 6 hours! That's a lot of animal seeing. Here's a picture of the map of the zoo to give you an idea of how big it is.

Just as a recap - here's how the day went:

9:15 - Arrived at the zoo and had no trouble getting a parking space or buying tickets. The only people there right at the opening were families with small kids and 2 American young adults.

Saw Komodo Dragon, Australian Lizards and Otters. Saw Native Turtles and Aldabran turtles. Saw Gator, saw Gator, saw Gator, saw Gator, saw Gator.

10:00 - Saw Tasmanian Devel. It was Tasmanian Devel day (they are trying to raise money for the plight of cancer that is endangering the devel). We hung around here a bit to see watch them get fed, listen to the keeper's talk about them and watch them bring one out on the leash. Josh did not do his imitation of the cartoon devil. Saw Gator. Saw Dingoes and Cassowaries.

10:30 - Snack because we hadn't had much for breakfast. Saw Koalas (on Koala island) and Foxes.

11:00 - Went to the Crocoseum to see their twice daily show. It was awesome. The birds were so well trained and were dive bombing the crowd. They had the elephants and snakes out there. And the main event was getting to see them get a gator to go for the meat. It took forever, but it was pretty awesome.

11:45 - Saw Eastern Grey Kangaroos and Wallabies. Bought roo food for a $1 and fed and petted the kangaroos. Saw a kangaroo throw up from eating too much food (not our kangaroo - another one) and saw a Joey crawl into its mama's pouch. Saw Echidnas. Saw all kinds of birds in The Wetlands section. Saw Emus, Elephants and Red Pandas.

1:00 - Went to main food court and ate lunch. We were pretty much starving at this point. Saw Gator, saw Gator, saw Gator.

1:30 - Took shuttle back up East Asia section and saw Tigers. Watched them play in the water with toys and the trainers. They were just big ol' kitty cats. Came back and saw Koalas (again, but this time in an open range. And we got to pet one.). Saw Red Kangaroos. Went into Rainforest Aviary and saw more birds. Saw birds of prey in their special cage. Saw Southern Hairly-Nosed Wombats, Common Wombats and Australian Snakes. They had about 12 snakes on display. About 7 of those snakes were venomous. It was creepy. Saw American Alligators.

3:00 - Made it to the gift shop and walked around in the air conditioner looking for a magnet to remember our trip by (it's kind of our thing). We settled on a cute koala.

3:15 - In the car driving back to the hotel.

I'm pretty sure that the only things that we missed were the Camels (but we did smell them) and the Kookaburras (but I did sing that old camp song when I saw their name on the map). What impressed us most was how active and interactive the animals were. We were afraid that we were just going to be walking around looking at animals napping in their cages, but in most cases, there was a keeper at each exhibit to answer your questions or to play with / take care of the animals.

We were also impressed with their signs.

The last 4 don't just get an X, but they get a red Death mark.

Josh says....

If you can't beat them, join them.