Animals around the world
by Isaac Strauss
I’m gonna be talking about some of the amazing animals we’ve seen on this trip, including kiwis and fruit bats. Enjoy!
Albino lizard
We saw the albino lizard at Berry Spot in Singapore. Lizards are usually green, but this one was white. It was an average size, about 10cm by 2cm. It was eating bugs. When the lizard was stalking bugs, it would crawl behind them and catch them. It was super cute.
Elephants
We saw the elephants in Thailand. There were 4 of them. We rode them, then bathed them, and finally swam with them. The way the elephants walked made them so majestic. Fun fact: elephant hairs are wiry!
Camels
We saw the camels in Morocco. We rode them on the beach and in the water. When we were getting onto the camels, it was like a see-saw where you go up, and then the other side goes up. The camel leader was singing Don’t Worry Be Happy. You can find out more in my other blog post (facts may not be 100% true).
Kiwis
We saw the kiwis in New Zealand at the National Kiwi Hatchery. We didn't get to touch them because they are endangered, and touching them may be fatal. Fun fact Incubating a kiwi egg in the wild can take up to 82 days.
Kangaroos & Wallabies
We saw the Kangaroos & wallabies at the Moonlit Sanctuary in Australia. We got to feed them and pet them. There were lots of them and even some big kangaroos. I even learned some differences between wallabies and kangaroos: for example, wallabies are smaller than kangaroos.
Fruit Bats
We saw the fruit bats in the Night Zoo in Singapore. The fruit bats were eating melons, bananas, and one was eating a strawberry. One thing that was interesting about them was how fast they ate the fruit. When we entered the enclosure there was a full melon, and by the time we left there was a giant bite out of it.
Octopus
We saw the octopus at Oceanografic in Valencia, Spain. It was in a glass tank about 1 ft high, by 2 ft long, and 3 ft wide. It was purple, and pretty small. Mostly I remember it from the photo Abigail took.
Dolphins
The dolphins were in a show, also at Oceanografic in Valencia, Spain. They did a ton of cool tricks, for example, jumping out of the water and spinning in mid-air. They were very fast. I think there were around 7 of them.
Monkeys
We’ve seen monkeys in both Ubud, Bali, Indonesia and Gibraltar. First, I’m going to talk about the monkeys in Gibraltar. There were a ton of them and they came in all sizes. They were very playful and they like to climb all over you. There was a giant one named King Kong because he was very big. King Kong jumped on Evan’s shoulders and Evan said it was almost as heavy as me!
The monkeys in the Ubud monkey forest didn’t really play with us. Instead, they just hung out on the sidewalk eating nuts and corn. In Ubud you can take a monkey selfie which is where the caretaker holds food so the monkey reaches out and then they snap a photo to make it look like the monkey is holding the phone.
Frog
We saw the frog in Bali, Indonesia. When we got to our house there was this little frog on the window who was hanging out there. He was just hopping along. My brother touched him. We might have given him a name but I forgot. The size was about 5 cm by 4cm by 2cm.
Baby frog
We saw the baby frogs in Copenhagen. There were literally thousands of them, and whenever you looked down, the ground seemed to be moving. They were less then a centimeter long. We caught a lot of them. We just let them hop on our hands and after a little while we let them go.
Personal Note:
During this trip we've seen a ton of cool animals including tigers and penguins but my personal favorite has been the kiwi. Because they are flightless birds they don't live in trees and instead live in a burrow underground. They are endangered due to dogs, pigs and even stoats. You are not allowed to touch them because their egg is almost as big as their body so all their organs are squished up together and touching them could be fatal to the kiwi.
