European zoo photo update

Hello readers, long time no blog. I have had almost no spare time of late, having had a full time job for the best part of a year (audio transcription for a London based market research company), still working on my Masters in Vert Palaeo, and trying to have a life. Speaking of which, I recently took a trip to France and Germany to visit a few zoos and collections that have been on my list for ages, and was not disappointed. I took five and a half thousand photos at eight zoos of various sizes, and it has been a mammoth task editing them and getting them ready to be seen. For now, they can all be viewed on my Flickr site.

First stop was the Ménagerie at the Jardin des Plantes in Paris. Although I've been before, the zoo has updated its collection to include such beauties as the Goodfellow's tree kangaroo, eastern quoll, and MacQueen's bustard. Link here.

I then visited the Parc des Félins just outside Paris. This is a collection of wild cats of several different species and subspecies, including southern oncilla (recently split from the northern species), Asiatic golden cat, Angolan lion, and Sri Lankan leopard. Link here.

The newly reopened Paris Zoo was a small but well-planned collection of species from around the world, including Iberian wolf, crowned sifaka, and Kordofan giraffe. Link here.

I then moved east to Cologne (Köln) and visited their zoo, featuring red-shanked douc, south African ratel (honey badger), and blue-eyed lemur. Link here.

I visited the world famous Walsrode Weltvogelpark, home to hundreds of species of bird - and nothing else - including shoebill, king bird of paradise, kagu, and cuckoo roller. Link here.

I spent a few days in Berlin, starting with a tour of the excellent carnivore collection at Wildkatzenzentrum Felidae just outside the city. I saw greater grison, banded civet, Malayan civet, and tayra to name a few. Link here.

Berlin, having erstwhile been two cities, has two zoos. The West Berlin zoo, Zoo Berlin, has a large collection of animals, including Baird's tapir, Siberian ibex, southern springhare, and common vampire bat, to name just a few. Link here.

The zoo in East Berlin, Tierpark Berlin, is a monster of a place, and was almost impossible to complete in a day. Still, I saw Chacoan mara, Javan leopard, Mesopotamian fallow deer, and three species (or subspecies) of takin, and much more. Link here.

I also visited the Museum für Naturkunde and saw their nice collection of African dinosaur mounts, both Tendaguru (including Dicraeosaurus, Dysalotosaurus, Elaphrosaurus, and of course Giraffatitan) and north Africa (Spinosaurus and Deltadromeus, for example), as well as the taxidermy gallery. Link here.

Please enjoy my photos (or don't, I'm not gonna tell you what to do), and if you want to use any of them, please ask me first.