Trip to the Zoo with Mr. Animal Man

I took Andrew and Caroline to the zoo today since Andrew has asking now for a while. And by a while I mean it’s been the only thing out of his mouth this week.

Andrew and Caroline at the Zoo

Here we are hanging out in front of the Koi Pond.

Half way through our day we came across a demonstration where they brought out this smaller cat that looked to me like a small cheetah except that it had spots on its body and stripes on its neck and tail.

Serval

It moves fast like a cheetah and it turns out they can run about 40 miles an hour making it the second fastest land animal. It also has some amazing leaping power where they had it jump from a sitting position to a platform that was about 8 feet off the ground. (Which I didn’t manage to get a picture of, this one was it jumping off a post.)

Serval

After the amazing leaping demonstration the zoo keeper who was running the demonstration ask the audience,

“There is another small cat like this that also has the same jumping ability that we have here in the zoo, does anyone know what it is?”

Andrew’s hand immediately shot in the air and I was filled with absolute panic, there is no way he knows this. His was the only hand raised out of the entire crowd of about a 100 people so the keeper called on him.

“The Caracal” he said.

My first thought was “The What?” and the Keeper was also very impressed and she let him know too.

I’m not sure why I ever doubted him.

For the rest of us not quite as well versed with out animals here you go.