Either they have been doing some extreme experiments in genetic engineering down here, or South American animals are just very different. To be fair, the zoo did not seem all that well maintained, so it’s very possible that the animals are escaping frequently and doing some of their own ‘genetic engineering’ if you know what I mean.
In reality, there are at least 2 reasons why this zoo is worth checking out:
1) The crazy, crazy animals
2) The fact that many of the crazy, crazy animals roam free throughout the grounds rather than being confined to a cage
Let’s start with a few of the crazy animals (which also happen to be roaming free):
Exhibit A: Duck + Turkey = Durkey?
Duck? Turkey? Durkey?? And no, this is not a one-off weird looking duck, there are tons of these running around and they all look the same
Exhibit B: Beaver/Gopher/Hedgehog = BeapherHog?
This is kind of like a giant hedgehog...
...except that it has webbed feet in the back, bright orange teeth and an attitude.
Exhibit C: Our personal favorite, the Rabbit/Deer = Dabbit?
What are you???
They are decently big and they run free all over the zoo. They seem a little skittish, but friendly. And very, very weird.
The above three animals (Durkeys, BeapherHogs and Dabbits) are all over the zoo, just kind of hanging out. Other animal hybrid creations apparently are less friendly and need to be kept in cages. For instance…
Exhibit D: The Tapir
Tapir = cross between anteater and wild boar? He looks sad--it might be because he's so weird looking.
Seriously, what are you???
Exhibit E: These guys
No idea... kind of like the rabbit/deer things crossed with the giant hedgehog things. You may recognize the guy in the front as the actor that played Mr. Beaver in The Chronicles of Narnia movie
Exhibit F: Anteater thing
I think you are an anteater, but I have no idea. What I do know is that you could very easily wear a traffic cone as a helmet.
Nice piece of tail
Exhibit G: Satan goat
Do not mess with this goat, it will haunt your dreams
Exhibit H: These guys
And on the seventh day, god had some extra spray paint to get rid of...
In addition to having animals that you’re unlikely to have ever seen before, there are some animals that would be normal-ish except that they seem to have gone a bit crazy. For example:
Exhibit I: Smiling Llama
He has lots of personality...
...or possibly is just unable to close his mouth due his abnormally large lower teeth
Exhibit J: Flaccid Camel
I swear, this has never happened before...
Exhibit K: Acro Elephant
Hard to capture in a photo, but this elephant attempted to perform a head stand for a good 3 minutes. He almost fell down a few times. Then he started running around his pen erratically (often backwards). Could have had to do with the roaring lion that was next door, or he is just crazy.
There were lots of other more normal animals as well of course like lions and tigers and birds and stuff. You can check out the rest of our photos in our photo gallery: Buenos Aires City Zoo Photos
Just because the lemurs and the baby hippo were particularly entertaining we took a couple of videos:
Lemur fight:
Hippo teeth:
Logistics
The Buenos Aires City Zoo is located in Palermo right next to the Botanical Garden–The main entrance is right next to Plaza Italia and it costs AR$15/ticket for a general entrance or a little more if you want to go into the special attractions (which didn’t seem to be worth it). It’s fully outdoors, so probably not fun in the rain.
Also, they have a pretty crazy website with more info, lots of pics/videos and annoying music: http://www.zoobuenosaires.com.ar/index.php
Verdict
It’s cheap, it’s centrally located and it has most of the craziest animals we’ve ever seen. It’s always a bit depressing to see caged animals and some of these animals looked pretty unhappy, but overall we enjoyed the zoo far more than we thought we would. It shouldn’t be on the top of your list of things to do on a short vacation here, but it’s a fun way to spend a few hours and we’d highly recommend it.
Anyone out there have any idea what some of those animals are?
My first thought was that C was the mythical jackalope, but then I did a little sleuthing for you: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mara_(mammal)
Glad you’re having fun down there!
Exhibit E is a capybara. It’s the world’s largest rodent. Because it is so large, it doesn’t seem quite so… rodent-y. But seriously. R.O.U.S.’s from The Princess Bride DO exist!
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That is legend animal at this zoo!
Satan goat can eat brains?