The Rio Grande Zoo is at the BioPark in Albuquerque, New Mexico. At the entrance of the zoo they have some wonderful metal sculptures.

This is the second time I’ve been to the Rio Grande Zoo, and I’m excited because they have an absolutely wonderful vulture exhibit. We’ll get to that soon enough.

So, lets get started!!

I have noticed that at several zoos I’ve visited over the years, flamingos are often the first thing you’ll see.

It was thought for years that flamingos were pink due to eating shrimp, however they have found it is the algae they eat that has carotenoid pigments that makes them and the shrimp pink.

The reptile house is my next stop. I start by pointing out the snakes.

As we’ve seen at other zoos, the snakes are dominated by venomous and big snakes. However, the Rio Grande Zoo has two smaller snakes that are not venomous, the grey banded kingsnake and the tentacled snake. The zoo also has a large snake that is also venomous: the king cobra. The king cobra is often between 10 and 13 feet, but one measured over 19 feet. As you might guess, the king cobra is the longest and heaviest venomous snake.

The zoo seems to have a good mix of venomous snakes with some cobras, some vipers, and rattlesnakes. I have often seen black mambas at zoos but this may be the first zoo I’ve seen a green mamba. The zoo had a nice display explaining the difference between poison and venom:

For big snakes they have one of my favorites, the green anaconda. The green anaconda is considered the heaviest snake though not necessarily the longest. Both the green anaconda and the reticulated python have been reported as the longest snake and the heaviest snake. From authenticated measurements, the reticulated python is the longest and the green anaconda the heaviest.

I was excited when I saw a woma python for the first time at the Henry Doorly Omaha Zoo, however it isn’t as unique to zoos as I thought. I will have to check on the ringed python as well, since this is the first one I’ve seen at a zoo. I have seen the Madagascar ground boa before, however I didn’t get a good photo. This was a great opportunity for me to get a good photo.

I think it is cool that the Rio Grande Zoo has a kingsnake, specifically a grey-banded kingsnake. What makes king snakes interesting to me is that they are famous for eating other snakes! They will even eat venomous snakes. In the United states king snakes will sometimes eat rattlesnakes, cottonmouths and copper head snakes.

We now move on to lizards and turtles.

I am amazed at times how often I’ve seen Komodo dragons in zoos. I imagine it is because they are the largest lizard (length and weight). The reason I’m surprised at how often I see them, is that Komodo dragons can be quite dangerous in the wild.

Though they are not dangerous, I have also seen the Quince monitor, Cuban knight anole, and chuckwalla at several zoos as well. Anyone want to take a guess why they are common in zoos?

I think the Matamata turtle looks weird, but I guess it helps it blend in to their environment, where they catch fish. Also a fish eater, is the alligator snapping turtle. These snapping turtles are the largest turtles, non sea turtles, found in the United states. Like the St. Louis Zoo has done with hellbenders, the Rio Grande Zoo is raising then releasing Rio Grande cooters back into river systems that they have gone extinct.

The last of the reptiles are a couple of alligators. The group of reptiles that include crocodiles and alligators is called the crocodilians.

As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve been unsure how to tell an American alligator from a Chinese alligator. Since the Rio Grande Zoo has both, I looked it up. The American alligator tends to be larger, though their sizes overlap considerably. When the Chinese alligator and the American alligators are the same length, the Chinese looks and is a bit heavier. The Chinese alligator also tends to have a shorter and upturned snout. For me, I will probably just read the signs.

Now I stroll through a bird area, with first up some macaws. Macaws in general are very colorful birds.

Like most parrots, macaws are very intelligent and are often used in bird shows. However, places like Tracy Aviary have been training other birds like jays and hornbills. All the bird trainers I’ve talked to say the big flightless birds (emus and ostriches) are not smart, at all.

After the macaws, we see some birds behind glass. These are birds that are extinct in the wild, except the buff crested bustard.

The Guam kingfisher was decimated by the introduction (by accident) of the brown tree snake. The Socorro dove lived on the Socorro Island and went extinct in the wild due feral cats, likely introduced by the military base established there. Both the Guam kingfisher and Socorro dove are in breeding programs in hopes of re-introducing them back into the wild in the future.

As I continue my journey some more birds come up, some birds of prey.

I have found bald eagles a common bird in zoos. This is probably because when a wild bald or golden eagle are injured and can’t be released back into the wild, zoos will sometimes take them in.

I find that the great horned owl looks kind of menacing. Owls and eagles have cone shaped eyeballs, so they can’t move their eyes back and forth. So, both have to move their heads, with the owls being able to turn almost completely around.

There were enclosures for an Andean condor and a Steller’s sea eagle but both were off exhibit. Since those two birds are some of my favorite birds (especially the Andean condor), I was a little disappointed.

Just past the raptors are some wolves, Mexican gray wolves to be exact.

Most of the zoos I have visited in the mid-west, have red wolves. Red wolves are highly endangered, as is the Mexican gray wolf. It makes sense to me that in Albuquerque, New Mexico Mexican gray wolves since they are very close to Mexico. Interestingly, there are currently more wild Mexican gray wolves in New Mexico and Arizona than in Mexico.

As I continue I wander into some more carnivores. Starting with big cats.

As I’ve mentioned before I often see tigers in zoos, however most of them are Amur tigers. This is one of the few zoos that have a Malayan tiger. These tigers are smaller than the Amur tiger. I was pleased with the good photo I got of the mountain lion.

Most of the big cats are from warmer or tropical areas, except the snow leopard. I imagine the snow leopard doesn’t much like the New Mexico summers.

Servals are great leapers and catch birds flying from the ground in mid-air! Ocelots are smaller cats and like the Mexican gray wolf also occur in the United States.

At the beginning of this area was a wonderful polar bear habitat. Unfortunately the polar bears weren’t out. Similarly, the African lions were hiding. As I’ve mentioned before sometimes I miss animals. I have missed lions on a couple of visits now. Maybe I got spoiled by the lion exhibit at Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago.

Just after the big cats there was an exhibit with red kangaroos.

I found it very amusing that a wild squirrel was in with the kangaroos trying to get an easy meal.

Before I get to the elephants, I go through the building called: Life on a Limb.

When I first looked at the map, I thought “Life on a Limb” might be birds. However, amphibians throughout the world are having problems. There is a disease called Chytridiomycosis that is killing amphibians throughout the Americas. So “Life on a Limb” may refer to the desperate citation amphibians are in.

The Rio Grande Zoo had more salamanders and newts than most zoos. I have always been fascinated by newts and salamanders, especially because I think they look much like a lizards, but are completely different. Some salamanders can breath through their SKIN!!

I head over to a large area where they keep their Asian elephants.

Even though the enclosures are quite large, they were hanging around the fences. It may have been close to feeding time.

I am now headed toward the African exhibits. Along the way I stop and enjoy the below bison sculpture.

First up in the African area is mountain zebras. I have to laugh at this because I did a Facebook post about zebras and I said I didn’t have any photos of the mountain zebra. Whoops.

As with the Henry Doorly Omaha Zoo, the white rhinoceros has very large horns. Most rhinoceros have very tough hides. I have petted a white rhinoceros and it’s skin felt like sandpaper and was hard.

With their long tongues giraffes test the texture along with taste. So the fence’s rough surface may feel interesting or there may be some salt on it.

Believe it or not, the hairy ball in the window is a chimpanzee. I and all the Zoo Folk know you don’t hit or pound on glass at the zoos. A lot of animals have sensitive ears and hitting the glass upsets them.

I now come to a few African carnivores. I don’t know why the cheetah is here and not with the other big cats. Or, why isn’t the African lion in this area. I guess it’s a mystery.

I have listed the African wild dogs as both African wild dog and African painted dog. Both names are used when talking about these African dogs. When I was growing up the books I read called them Cape hunting dogs. These are all the same animal. They have the highest hunting success of any large predator on the African plains.

As I wrote in the St. Louis Zoo post, though hyenas look a bit like a dog they are more closely related to cats. The spotted hyena has a very strong bite force, which it uses to crush bones of large herbivores.

I will probably always have more than one photo of cheetahs. I think they are really cool cats. When I was a kid, I really liked cheetahs because they were so fast. Now I’ve learned many interesting things about them and I like them even more.

I now head to the area I mentioned at the beginning of this post, the vulture exhibit. First up is a pair of lappet-faced vultures, these are very large vultures.

Lappet-faced vultures have one of the largest bills of any raptor. These are the vultures that rip into carcasses so other vultures can feed.

The vulture enclosure is like other aviaries, but there is fencing to keep vultures and guests separated. However, you do get to walk right in underneath live vultures! How cool is that!!

This enclosure is separate from the lappet-faced vultures. The Cape vultures are very large birds as well.

I have a little story to tell. While I was at this exhibit, a Cape vulture came and landed next to the other Cape vultures. The others squawked at the vulture that had landed. I have seen a lot of documentaries with African vultures in them and have heard on the TV vultures squawking at one another. However this was the first time I heard it first hand. It was the first thing I told my wife after the zoo visit.

Besides the vultures, they have storks and cranes in this area which they call the African Aviary.

The marabou stork is often seen with vultures in Africa. They are principally scavengers like the vultures. I think the bill on the saddle-billed stork is very colorful. Can you see why they call it a “saddle” bill? If you have trouble seeing the saddle-billed stork checkout the photo from the St. Louis Zoo.

The next areas have African herbivores, but different than the earlier ones. First is a warthog, then some hippopotamuses.

This is the largest hippo pond I’ve seen. There is even a bridge to walk over, and it’s possible you would see hippos below you! The large bars are because hippos are quite strong.

Finally in this area is a klipspringer. This small delicate antelope seems out of place with the warthog and hippos.

I came across a wandering peacock and pea-hen, though in different areas of the zoo.

Keeping with the Africa theme, we move on to lemurs. Specifically black-and-white ruffed lemurs

The lemur seemed to be searching around for something.

After the lemurs I wandered into another aviary. This is kind of an Australian aviary.

I had a very hard time identifying the blue-faced honeyeater. I was surprised to learn several years ago that the laughing kookaburra is a type of kingfisher (like the belted kingfisher we have in the US).

Getting back to primates I am at the siamang exhibit.

The siamang is a type of gibbon. I had thought there were only a few types of gibbons but I have learned there are actually 20 different species of gibbon (according to Wikipedia). The siamang is known for the loud calls they make, which can be heard for miles in the jungles of Asia.

Continuing with the apes, next up is the western lowland gorillas.

The western lowland gorilla, like all other types of gorillas, is critically endangered. It is good to see a baby gorilla (first photo) which will hopefully help future generations. I have also found out recently that the western lowland gorilla is the only gorilla displayed in the United States, and in zoos in the rest of the world. So, I guess if I want to see an eastern lowland gorilla, the largest of all primates, I will have to go to Africa.

From the jungles of Africa and gorillas, I head to the cold region of the sub-antarctic and penguins.

The Rio Grande Zoo has the best penguin exhibit I have yet seen. You start at above water level with penguins (first and second photos), then you go down a ways and you are at water level (third and fourth photos). Finally you go down even further and you are underwater with the penguins (eighth/last photo). It is great to see the penguins at the different water levels.

On the ramp going down to the below water level, there is a display of all the different penguins in the world. The display starts with the penguins living in warmer waters to the emperor penguins that spend the entire year in Antarctica, the coldest place on earth.

I found the display very interesting, especially since I thought there were more species of penguins. Can you identify all of them? I couldn’t.

As I head back to leave, I realize I missed an area by the Birds of the Islands. Here they had some more interesting birds and a very large tortoise. The Aldabra giant tortoise is the oldest resident at the zoo with an estimated age of around 50-100 years old.

I really like the way the tropical birds are so colorful, with sun conure being a wonderful example. Even the hornbill (wrinkled hornbill) is colorful. Though all white, I also find the Bali myna pretty. I have no idea what the cockatoo is trying to get.

In the same general area are some desert birds, the burrowing owl and greater roadrunner. These less colorful birds need to blend in with a desert environment which includes rocks, sand, and sage brush.

As I head to the exit I notice another sculpture:

What a wonderful time I’ve had at this zoo. I especially liked the unique vulture exhibit, the huge hippopotamus pond, and the wonderful penguin exhibit.

So this is the Zoo Guy to all the Zoo Folk, I hope you get a chance to go to a zoo before too long, maybe the Rio Grande Zoo, at the BioPark in Albuquerque, New Mexico.