The National Zoo By Ethan V.

                            The National Zoo

                                                                       By Ethan V.

                                                                         8-14-21

    For todays adventure with Koko we decided to go to National Zoo, which is the zoo in D.C. 

    

    We got a Lyft there at around 9:30 and when we got there the first thing we all wanted to do was see the Pandas. To see the Pandas we had to go through the Asia Trail, which has other animals form Asia in it. One of the cooler animals I saw before seeing the Pandas was the fishing cat, a cat from Asia that hunts fish. The crazy thing about it is that they fed it live fish, and it had to catch them itself. It seems like that would be normal but normally they give even the biggest predators already dead food. Also on the Asian trail we saw the Asian elephants. Elephants are my favorite animal, so it was cool to see them in action.

     Then we got to the Pandas. They we are all inside a building, which makes sense because of how hot it was outside. We saw three and they were all sleeping.   

    After seeing the Asian Trail, we went on the American trail. There we saw two Harbor Seals, a Bald Eagle, and some Sea Lions which we see back home in San Diego all the time. Also on the American Trail was the Andean Bear, which lives in the Andes mountains of South American. These bears were very cool because they actually are very skilled climbers and spend most of their time in trees. There were two there and one of them was walking on the ground but the other was actually climbing a tree in it’s exhibit. 

     Next we went into the Amazonia exhibit, which was right next to the American trail and had a lot of reptiles that live in the Amazon. We saw some Poison Dart frogs and Salamanders but the weirdest of all was the Caecilian, which I had never seen in my life. It looked like a worm or tapeworm but was in the water. It looked like an Alien, because it was so long and had no eyes like a worm. It was a very interesting animal. Another one of my favorites from the Amazonia exhibit was the African Clawed Frog, which looks like a normal frog but actually swims, and we saw it swim right in front of us. 

    Another one of the coolest things I saw at the Zoo was the reptile house. We saw a Cuban Crocodile that was staring at us, and a lot of snakes, turtles and lizards. The best, though was the Alligator Snapping Turtle and another Turtle that looked very similar to a dinosaur with a weird nose and claws on its flippers. 

Overall, today was very fun and I learned and saw a lot of new things!