Monday, July 30, 2007

Zoo Post

At London Zoo they have a giant inflated walk-in caterpillar housing their butterfly and moth collection. When I saw these massive Atlas moths, I thought I was looking at cardboard cutouts. They are so huge and so perfect.


The larvae are pretty impressive, too!

The two-toed sloth seemed to pose just for me to take this picture. The pair of them were motoring around with un-sloth-like haste, but even so, every movement seemed to be in slow motion. I just missed getting a picture of this male scent-marking. He just paused, thrust out his bits and dobbed some musk on the branch. Nice!
By the way, anybody know why they're called two-toed sloths, 'cos it looks to me as if they have THREE toes.

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7 comments:

  1. JoJo7:38 pm

    Those moths are HUGE! And yes, the sloth does look like he has 3 toes!

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  2. Anonymous2:07 am

    julie...
    beautiful. nature is so wonderful.

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  3. plaice4:41 am

    Don't the moths look like they have an asp ready to strike at each top wing tip? What a defense mechanism.

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  4. Claire8:02 am

    There are both two And three-toed sloths. They both have three toes. They live in the same environment. The two-toed variety has two fingers. I guess you have to get a look at their arms and check out the number of fingers. I noticed that you cannot see this guy's fingers in your photo. Have any others?

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  5. Unknown5:09 pm

    Great photos Val. The sloth does appear to be posing for you doesn't he?

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  6. val7:39 pm

    Plaice, you are right!

    Pauline, thanks for the information. Sadly I'm not really any wiser.

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  7. l'oreal5:02 pm

    awww those animals are beautiful. especially those butterflies. they're huge

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