Menagerie du Jardin des Plantes

We visited the Menagerie du Jardin des Plantes aka the zoo. It exceeded my expectations greatly. I was expecting it to be a small zoo since it was in a garden with a few number of animals. It was quite the opposite. For a garden zoo it was quite large (bigger than the Central Park Zoo). There was quite the variety of animals there too. There was a monkey house, a big cat house, a snake/amphibian house, and a reptile house plus all sorts of out door exhibits. I was impressed.

We thought the flamingos were pretty funny. They were making a racket while we were looking at them. They were pecking at each other and then as a flock would run to one corner of the exhibit for a few minutes and then run back to the other side. Cosette and I were wondering what they were doing. I asked her and she said she didn't know and we laughed and laughed about it because it was so funny to us that they were running from side to side. They were one of our favorites.

Since I am talking about birds this zoo had quite the collection of them. There were some really interesting ones that I had never seen before. I especially like their section on condors. They had about four or five different types on exhibit. There was one from Northern Africa which was quite interesting to look at. There was also the Indian Condor whose head was completely bald and close to a bright red color (I think that is what it was called. It was all in French and I saw the word Indian so I assume it is the Indian Condor). It was fascinating to see these birds for the first time.


She was mesmerized by the Blue Macaws. They are beautiful birds so it is understandable why she was entranced by them. We hung out by them for a while.



One of the African condors. So cool!

The snake house was another favorite. Cosette likes to watch her shows lying down and when she does that she calls it the snake position. Seeing the snakes was very interesting to her. We would look at each tank in the snake house and try to find them. The Gabon Viper was particularly active that day silthering around and looking straight at us. It was so neat to see it move. It scales were totally acting like feet! I explained to her how snakes smell with their tongues and about how they coil around branches, it was a fun teaching experience for me. There was one lizard that gave us a start. We were looking for it and of course it was right in front of our faces, its belly on the glass facing us. It was sticking its tongue in and out, so funny.

Cosette here with a GIANT mountain goat. I was surprised at how large this thing was. The picture does not do it justice. I promise it was large in stature. 

Bonjour from this guy. he walked right up to us and starred at us while we were looking at this exhibit. I guess if someone was starring at me I would do the same. On a side note, it's antlers are huge!

The next best thing to seeing birds in the zoo is chasing after pigeons. 

Spinning around in the monkey house. She is pretty good at it.

The orangutans were the coolest apes in the monkey/ape house. I like the one up top that was wrapped up in a blanket.


Before we left the monkey exhibits Cosette decided to show off like a monkey. 

Another favorite was seeing the kangaroos. Cosette is a Winnie the Pooh fan so she was happy to see "Kanga and Roo".

My favorite thing about the zoo was that they had a raccoon exhibit. I laughed so hard when I saw that. They are so common in the states and kind of treated like a pest sometimes. I know growing up the raccoons ate our cat's food all the time. We were on a camping trip and they stole the marshmallows for our s'mores out of the trunk of the van! Those masked creatures. I had to get a photo of them even though they were asleep and you cannot see them. It is documented that there are raccoons on exhibit in the Jardin des Plantes Zoo.

The zoo had a big cat house with three leopards, two snow leopards and a  that were out. The leopards were very active and came right up to the glass pacing back and forth and bearing their teeth but not long enough for a good picture. I was too slow. 

What would a zoo be with out animal sculptures? We found a few to play on while there. 

The tradition continues!

Glad we could visit the menagerie. The Jarding des Plantes has a lot more interesting things there. We will have to go back and explore some more before we leave.