{"id":2077,"date":"2016-01-23T07:19:19","date_gmt":"2016-01-23T10:19:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.eayrs.com\/blog\/?p=2077"},"modified":"2016-01-23T07:24:58","modified_gmt":"2016-01-23T10:24:58","slug":"zoo-buenos-aires-13-january-2016","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eayrs.com\/blog\/archives\/2077","title":{"rendered":"Zoo, Buenos Aires – 13 January 2016"},"content":{"rendered":"

With time to kill in Buenos Aires I took myself to the zoo in Palermo, which I had not visited for at least twelve years. Although not a great fan of zoos I found the one in a much better state\u00a0than I remember it being, with development plans still underway.<\/p>\n

This is confusing as it has also been recently announced that the zoo is closing down. If this is the case, I hope they find some way of keeping up the conservation work – in several areas, for me in particular the Condor Rehabilitation unit<\/a>, where my condor friend Painamal was cared for before her release<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I limited the photos I took to Argentine mammals, some (like the llama and vicu\u00f1a) in compounds and some (like the mara and coypu) watering freely throughout the zoo.<\/p>\n

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Coipo (Myocastor coypus) Coypu<\/p><\/div>\n

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Mara (Dolichotis patagonum) Mara or Patagonian Hare<\/p><\/div>\n

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Carpincho (Hydrochaeris hydrochaeris) Capybara<\/p><\/div>\n

On to the\u00a0Camelidae family. Those not familiar with South American Animals tend to confuse llamas, vicu\u00f1as and guanacos, although these tend to be geographical separated. The llama is basically a domesticated form go the [still] wild guanaco. Vicu\u00f1as can be wild or domesticated. There is also of course the Alpaca (the photo is not mine), a domesticated vicu\u00f1a found in northern Chile, Bolivia and Peru..<\/p>\n

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Vicu\u00f1a (Vicugna vicugna) Vicu\u00f1a<\/p><\/div>\n

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Llama (Lama llama) Llama<\/p><\/div>\n

The llama and vicu\u00f1a are really quite different. Also easily differentiated is the guanaco (see below), which I did not see in the zoo but saw everywhere in southern Patagonia last year.<\/p>\n

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Guanaco (Lama guanaco) Guanaco<\/p><\/div>\n

Finally, the alpaca, photo courtesy of as I do not yet have one of my own. Domesticated a long time ago, there are no known wild alpacas today.<\/p>\n

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One of two kinds of alpaca, photo courtesy of wikipedia.<\/p><\/div>\n

I wasn’t really looking for birds, but among the zoo’s exhibits I did see a pen with Greater Rhea, a bird which I had only ever seen before as spots in the distance. I’m not really sure that I can claim this as a lifer though!<\/p>\n

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\u00d1and\u00fa (Rhea americana) Greater Rhea<\/p><\/div>\n

And the Southern (Crested) Screamer roamed freely throughout the zoo – again this was a bird i had previously only seen in the distance in Entre R\u00edos and Buenos Aires provinces.<\/p>\n

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chaja (Crested aka Southern Screamer) Chauna torquata<\/p><\/div>\n

Muscovy ducks were also everywhere – the zoo has plenty of lakes, and it was full breeding season<\/p>\n

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pato real (Muscovy Duck) Cairina moschata<\/p><\/div>\n

I found two\u00a0other bird photos in my camera roll: a striated heron (there were many in the zoo) and a bay-winged cowbird; not quite sure why I took them but perhaps to identify later.<\/p>\n

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tordo musico (Bay-winged Cowbird) Agelaioides badius<\/p><\/div>\n

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garcita azulada (Striated Heron) Butorides striata<\/p><\/div>\n

Funny to think that I was so thrilled to see my first striated heron in a visit to the Pantanos de Villa<\/a> in Lima only five months earlier, considering it a real ‘find’, and that they were common as muck here in the Buenos Aires city zoo. But that’s birding for you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With time to kill in Buenos Aires I took myself to the zoo in Palermo, which I had not visited for at least twelve years. Although not a great fan of zoos I found the one in a much better … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2077","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eayrs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2077","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eayrs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eayrs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eayrs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eayrs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2077"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.eayrs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2077\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2095,"href":"https:\/\/www.eayrs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2077\/revisions\/2095"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eayrs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eayrs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eayrs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}