21h50
Moi, prête pour la journée:
This morning we had to be up bright and early to meet at the RER to make our way for our adventure today.
It was still dark outside when I left!!
We started our day at La Ménagerie du Jardin des Plantes.
Right next door was the Parisian University for the Sciences!
We found the hippos!!
Ah ha! This is what I need to know for my final :P
A capuchin monkey! We don't study monkeys, but he was too cute not resist taking a photo!!
It's a collection of wild animals, but we were there to see the orangutans, as La Vallée des Singes doesn't have any. We were to observe them, so we can use the information to write our first paper. Oh joy. It was actually really cool. I never particularly thought apes were interesting, but after having learned so much, I noticed much more. For instance, how they walk with their hands and feet in fists, or how they can stand en pointe while holding on a rope. We watched them gather their food. They would put things in piles, then carry them to another area. The mother collected her favorite, then shared with her child. They saved the cabbage, which was presumably their least favorite, for last. It really was very interesting!
Their outdoor habitat. I was a bit disappointed at its size. I feel like I would get bored with the lack of activities for them :( Apparently, though, it's much better than it used to be.
A female hanging from a rope and standing en pointe. You can't see it well in this picture, but she's eating.
The three females together. Two are mother and baby who were raised in captivity, the other is not related and was raised in the wild, then brought here. You could totally tell, because she seemed a bit ostracized, or maybe it was just the mother-baby dynamic.
The baby was so active!!
We went inside to see the monkeys that were in there. I forgot what this was was called, but he looked right at me :)
A size diagram, haha. I guess I am tall :P
On a less related note, the toilets are strange, and you have to pay for them.
Then we went to Le Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, which was very close to La Ménagerie.
Here, they have many many many bones and fossils. We were there to compare skeletons of gibbons, chimpanzees, orangutans, gorillas, and humans. Wow. There was so much to observe, and it was so cool to see all the things we talked about on real skeletons. It will definitely help with the first paper. There were also a lot of other things housed here--all very interesting. I never thought I was a huge fan of skeletons, but they were quite interesting!!
A collection of skulls. Yeah, I'm supposed to know all the similarities and differences between them all. Plus the gibbon, which wasn't part of this collection. From top to bottom: Chimpanzee, Orangutan, Human, Gorilla. On the right: Gorilla v Human.
This is why I'm scared of fish. It was huge!!!!
A cyclopic cat. Yeah, seriously.
Lucy (Austrolopithecus afarensis). She was originally discovered in Hadar in 1974, and at 3.2 million years old was the oldest supposed human ancestor up to that point. However, since then, we've found Ardi (in 1994), who is dated back to 4.4 million years ago. See how her curved ilium indicates she was bipedal? Oh geez, I'm sounding like my professor!!! : P
After, on our way to La Grande Galerie d'Evolution, we stopped by the garden. Oh my!! It was beautiful! Is it weird that all I could think about looking at these beautiful flowers was which ones I'd like at my wedding? Ha, don't answer that :P
Mes favorites!!!
At La Galerie, we went to see an exhibit of stuffed gorilla, chimpanzee, gibbon, and orangutan. This museum was a bit more sad, because although I know in the Natural History Museum, all the animals were shot for their skeletons, it was more real to see them stuffed. I guess it just seems a little hypocritical to me--to kill an animal in order to preserve and learn from it? However, most of the exhibits are old, and I'm not sure if we do it like that anymore. We had a bit of a challenge actually finding the exhibit, but we finally did. There was very poor lighting (a surprise), so I couldn't really get great pictures. But, it's alright because we'll be seeing live ones next week at La Vallée des Singes.
This is a gibbon. From looking at it, you can tell that it is a female, because of the light coloring and black cap. Clearly, because its from genus Nomascus, it is sexually dichromatic. We know the species is concolor and not nasutus because the female doesn't have a dark belly. The male would be black. Yeah. I'm going to rock this final :P (Which phrase, on a side note, I learned in French. Yay for colloquialisms!!)
Then we were allowed to explore on our way. We were all very hungry, so we went on the search for a cheap place to eat. We found this cute little crêperie (La crêperie du Moulin), which was DELICIOUS! I had a ham and cheese crêpe, which I negleted to take a photo of, but it was beautiful :)
Such a cute little place!!! It's only open Thursday through Sunday, and only for lunch. I want one!
I saw this alleyway into apartments on our way back. This is one of the reasons why I love France :)
Tonight I stayed in, made some more pasta, and rested. I'm afraid I've been keeping myself a bit too busy...I can feel the fatigue getting worse. I'm going to try to get some good sleep tonight, and hopefully tomorrow do some more exploring of Paris. I also learned that the train ride to Germany is only about 2 hours, and 30 euros one way! Not too bad, if you ask me!! We'll see what happens :)
No comments:
Post a Comment