dailyeatings

Vombatus ursinis - The Common Wombat¹

Myrmecophaga tridactyla - The Giant Anteater²

Ceratotherium simum - The White Rhinoceros³

¹“Wombat” is fun to say. And it’s just simply adorable.

²They have no teeth, yet manage to eat up to 30,000 insects a day.

³Of the Black and the White Rhinos, the Black has the better scientific name (Diceros bicornis “Two-horns [Gr.] two-horns [Lat.]“) but the White just looks cooler.

A ridiculously attractive girl took me on a tour of the Fish and Reptile collections, a trip that included expositions on her recent induglences in 80’s synthpop, vivid anecdotes regarding the industrial-strength smoke machine at her Halloween party, a working model of a Dunkleosteus skull, discussing why Facebook is good for two things only: stalking and sharing photos, the story behind her very unusual yet appropriate first name, and a side trip to a room full of aquaria, whose occupants included a 30-year old African lungfish whose tank was tightly sealed lest he escape again and a piranha. Normally, I wouldn’t be too terribly impressed by tall, quirkily dressed former art students-turned-zoologists — I mean really, what’s so special about that — but a woman whose idea of a good tour is showing you the piranhas, now that’s the stuff instant, huge crushes are made of.