Friday, November 30, 2012

A Trip to the Dino Zoo

 Hi Kids, The North Carolina Zoo has a special exhibit going on, a display of, you guessed it, dinosaurs!  I've always been a big fan of these thunder lizards and figured they were worth a look.  I didn't bother writing down the names of these guys, and my memory ain't what it used to be, so we'll just have to rough it.  The first one is a Raptor made famous by that little known movie "Jurasic Park."  Speaking of Jurasic Park, a zoo employee told me that last week a visitor demanded her money back since she expected these animals to be real live dinosaurs. Eye-yi-yi..... At the very least us Pulp gamers can see examples of what "the experts" think dino color schemes would look like, although they admited they really have no idea and their paint schemes were based on lizards.
 A T-Rex the kids can climb on, if they have the guts.
 Stegosaurus. I remember this one since I was a kid.

 Something like Ceratosaurus?  Ring any bells?

 Aposomethingsomethingsaurus.  Used to be a Brontosaurus until they discovered it was the same dino that somebody else had already named.  Bummer.  I always liked the Brontosaurus.
 Ank...?  They said even it's eyelids were armored.  No doubt the speed demon of the prehistoric world.
 Compys.  Cute little guys.  Right up to the point when they gang-chew you.
Another childhood fav, the Triceratops!


 Big Daddy, the T-rex!  This is one of the anamatronic (it moves) ones.  From sheer dumb luck as I walked by it's head pivoted to follow me.  Yes, I know its a robot. But it was still creepy to have a 15 foot tall monster watching me go by.


 Lookit those beady little eyes.....
 T-rex babies in the nest.
 A better shot of the color scheme.
 Don't remember this guy's name, but they did not know if he was a carnivore or not.  Three foot claws though!
 Um.......
Well........

 A smaller well.....
 Don't know about this one either.  They said they didn't know if it spat poison or not.  Looks like it could.
 And don't brightly colored animals tend to be poisonous?
 And yes, the zoo has normal animals too.  Take this guy, for example. One of 8 or 10 elephants.
And a Barred Owl.  This is what provides the background in a few episodes of "Finding Bigfoot" on the Animal Planet Channel TV show.  It's feet look pretty small, though.
If you want to see the dinos you better hurry, their last day is Friday!  I've heard rumors that the  Winston-Salem "Sciworks" place has some different dinos on display, too, but haven't seen 'em.

2 comments:

Laughing Ferret said...

Thanks for sharing! What a cool idea. Pretty inspiring dinos- just right for one of my current projects. I'm still upset about Brontosaurus, hard to let go of the name for one of the classic iconic dinosaurs.

Michael Awdry said...

What a wonderful idea and a fantastic post! Got to love a dinosaur park!