Nearly-wild Life 2012
A couple of zoo visits in the English West Country.
Yellow mongoose, at the Cotswold Wildlife Park and Gardens (that's a fancy way of saying "zoo").
Black-tailed prarie dog, he sees what you are doing behind that fern.
Black-tailed prarie dog, he knows what you did. Black-tailed prarie dog, he does not forget.
Meerkat sentry.
Meerkat colony.
Southern white rhino.
Giraffe.
Close enough to touch.
Zebra foal ...
... is too shy.
African lions in the rain.
Bactrian camel.
Red panda, a (freakishly cute) relative of weasels, and only distantly related to giant pandas.
The wolverine, another relative of weasels.
Their webbed paws make them experts at walking on soft snow, and I have seen their tracks more than once on the snowy ridges of Norway. This one also has a very uncomfortable ear infestation.
Resting in a small hollow dug to keep the animal below surface level, which probably explains why they are so hard to see in the wild.
Black and white colobus monkey, with child.
One side of a ringtail lemur standoff.
First one to blink loses.
Crowned safika lemur.
Up close and personal.
Alaotran gentle lemur.
Parma wallaby, because it's not a proper zoo ... er ... wildlife park without a macropod.
Giant anteater, eating ... fruit, of course.
Cattle egret.
Humbolt penguins.
Great Indian hornbill.
Ruppell's griffon vulture, like an evil caricature of itself.
Burrowing owl, not burrowing.
Morelets crocodile, in part of one of the most superb exhibits. Many of the exhibits here are beautifully sculpted to reflect the natural environment, but this one goes beyond the basics, with the remains of a ruined village. This place could be a film set.
Aldabra giant tortoises, taking part in a nutrition programme.
Emerald tree monitor lizard.
Frilled lizards, closely related to the popular bearded dragons.
Teddy bear shaped camouflage on the side of a Dumeril's Ground Boa. Who'd have thought that natural selection would decide that the best camouflage pattern was a teddy bear, eh?
Bredls python, a few days before shedding its skin, as shown by the blue eyecaps.
Skeleton of an Indian Python, showing the tail (left) and ribcage (right). The extra bones attached to the ribs (glued for mounting, but naturally just attached to the flesh without direct contact with any ribs) are half a pelvis and one of the back legs, which pythons and boas have not completely lost. Though they are not the only types of snakes to still have these vestigial legs (appearing as cloacal spurs on live animals), they are the ones that are best known for the feature.
Black mamba, showing the black inside of its mouth, which gives it its name. This is a venomous snake in the elapid family, which also includes cobras.
Gaboon viper, a venomous snake in the same family as adders and rattlesnakes, but with an extremely large body and head compared with most of its close relatives.
Mangrove snake, one of the rear-fanged venomous colubrid snakes in the boiga genus.
Red tailed racer, a non-venomous species of colubrid snake, quite closely related to the popular corn snakes.
Sand cat at Bristol Zoo. Although the Bristol Zoo exhibits are less beautifully made than those at Cotswold, they make up for it by playing a more important technical role, taking part in breeding programs for endangered species.
Plumed basilisk, one of the types of lizard that can run on water.
A western chuckwalla taking a collard lizard for a ride around the vivarium.
Amethystine pythons, the largest of the morelia (tree pythons), and ranking quite high among the longest snakes in the world, at a maximum 8.5 metres. These are a more normal 5 metres each.
Egyptian spiny-tailed lizard, and a very enthusiastic collared lizard. The spiny tail is characteristic of the friendly and inquisitive uromastyx genus.
West African dwarf crocodile.
Blue spiny lizards, and a chuckwalla.
We were here for a special behind-the-scenes visit to see how they manage the reptile, amphibian and invertebrate displays and breeding programmes. These are their baby gila monsters, a calm and gentle venomous lizard.
Emerald tree monitor (called a green tree monitor in Bristol Zoo), in a quarantine vivarium while receiving medical treatment.
Standing's day gecko, related to the popular Green Day Gecko, and just as stunning.
Young mountain chicken frogs, named because they are frogs that taste like chicken, and live in mountains. In the Caribbean, they are hunted for food.
3 week old Vernon, a Vietnamese box turtle, part of a breeding programme for critically endangered species, and the first of his species to be successfully bred in the UK.
The entire global population of Partula Faba, a snail species endemic to French Polynesia. These represent the last possible chance for the survival of their species, and are being bred here in a desperate attempt to prevent their extinction. It's not often that you get to see the entire population of a complete species in a single photograph (this is an order of magnitude more than the recently deceased Lonesome George, who was the last of his subspecies).
A genus-relative; Partula hebe bella, laying an egg - the white blob emerging from behind the eye stalk.
A mating pair of Achrioptera fallax stick insects, with the colourful male, and drab female.
Phyllium giganteum, very convincing leaf insects.
Upside-down jellyfish, a bizarre jellyfish species that spends its adult life upside down, allowing algae in its tentacle pouches to photosynthesise using sunlight, producing a food source for the jellyfish.
Yellow mongoose, at the Cotswold Wildlife Park and Gardens (that's a fancy way of saying "zoo").
Black-tailed prarie dog, he sees what you are doing behind that fern.
Black-tailed prarie dog, he knows what you did. Black-tailed prarie dog, he does not forget.
Meerkat sentry.
Meerkat colony.
Southern white rhino.
Giraffe.
Close enough to touch.
Zebra foal ...
... is too shy.
African lions in the rain.
Bactrian camel.
Red panda, a (freakishly cute) relative of weasels, and only distantly related to giant pandas.
The wolverine, another relative of weasels.
Their webbed paws make them experts at walking on soft snow, and I have seen their tracks more than once on the snowy ridges of Norway. This one also has a very uncomfortable ear infestation.
Resting in a small hollow dug to keep the animal below surface level, which probably explains why they are so hard to see in the wild.
Black and white colobus monkey, with child.
One side of a ringtail lemur standoff.
First one to blink loses.
Crowned safika lemur.
Up close and personal.
Alaotran gentle lemur.
Parma wallaby, because it's not a proper zoo ... er ... wildlife park without a macropod.
Giant anteater, eating ... fruit, of course.
Cattle egret.
Humbolt penguins.
Great Indian hornbill.
Ruppell's griffon vulture, like an evil caricature of itself.
Burrowing owl, not burrowing.
Morelets crocodile, in part of one of the most superb exhibits. Many of the exhibits here are beautifully sculpted to reflect the natural environment, but this one goes beyond the basics, with the remains of a ruined village. This place could be a film set.
Aldabra giant tortoises, taking part in a nutrition programme.
Emerald tree monitor lizard.
Frilled lizards, closely related to the popular bearded dragons.
Teddy bear shaped camouflage on the side of a Dumeril's Ground Boa. Who'd have thought that natural selection would decide that the best camouflage pattern was a teddy bear, eh?
Bredls python, a few days before shedding its skin, as shown by the blue eyecaps.
Skeleton of an Indian Python, showing the tail (left) and ribcage (right). The extra bones attached to the ribs (glued for mounting, but naturally just attached to the flesh without direct contact with any ribs) are half a pelvis and one of the back legs, which pythons and boas have not completely lost. Though they are not the only types of snakes to still have these vestigial legs (appearing as cloacal spurs on live animals), they are the ones that are best known for the feature.
Black mamba, showing the black inside of its mouth, which gives it its name. This is a venomous snake in the elapid family, which also includes cobras.
Gaboon viper, a venomous snake in the same family as adders and rattlesnakes, but with an extremely large body and head compared with most of its close relatives.
Mangrove snake, one of the rear-fanged venomous colubrid snakes in the boiga genus.
Red tailed racer, a non-venomous species of colubrid snake, quite closely related to the popular corn snakes.
Sand cat at Bristol Zoo. Although the Bristol Zoo exhibits are less beautifully made than those at Cotswold, they make up for it by playing a more important technical role, taking part in breeding programs for endangered species.
Plumed basilisk, one of the types of lizard that can run on water.
A western chuckwalla taking a collard lizard for a ride around the vivarium.
Amethystine pythons, the largest of the morelia (tree pythons), and ranking quite high among the longest snakes in the world, at a maximum 8.5 metres. These are a more normal 5 metres each.
Egyptian spiny-tailed lizard, and a very enthusiastic collared lizard. The spiny tail is characteristic of the friendly and inquisitive uromastyx genus.
West African dwarf crocodile.
Blue spiny lizards, and a chuckwalla.
We were here for a special behind-the-scenes visit to see how they manage the reptile, amphibian and invertebrate displays and breeding programmes. These are their baby gila monsters, a calm and gentle venomous lizard.
Emerald tree monitor (called a green tree monitor in Bristol Zoo), in a quarantine vivarium while receiving medical treatment.
Standing's day gecko, related to the popular Green Day Gecko, and just as stunning.
Young mountain chicken frogs, named because they are frogs that taste like chicken, and live in mountains. In the Caribbean, they are hunted for food.
3 week old Vernon, a Vietnamese box turtle, part of a breeding programme for critically endangered species, and the first of his species to be successfully bred in the UK.
The entire global population of Partula Faba, a snail species endemic to French Polynesia. These represent the last possible chance for the survival of their species, and are being bred here in a desperate attempt to prevent their extinction. It's not often that you get to see the entire population of a complete species in a single photograph (this is an order of magnitude more than the recently deceased Lonesome George, who was the last of his subspecies).
A genus-relative; Partula hebe bella, laying an egg - the white blob emerging from behind the eye stalk.
A mating pair of Achrioptera fallax stick insects, with the colourful male, and drab female.
Phyllium giganteum, very convincing leaf insects.
Upside-down jellyfish, a bizarre jellyfish species that spends its adult life upside down, allowing algae in its tentacle pouches to photosynthesise using sunlight, producing a food source for the jellyfish.