The monkeys stand for honesty, giraffes are insincere, and the elephants are kindly but they're dumb...

This fuzzy kitty is one of the many inhabitants of the excellent St. Louis Zoo. I felt a little like a criminal just walking through the turnstile without taking out a second mortgage (ahem, Columbus Zoo...) but the St. Louis Zoo is free, and that's the kind of deep discount I can get behind.

Speaking of behinds... I do believe these here are some tortoise posteriors, but it can be a little hard to tell.

Anyway, as I walked past and noticed the condition of their cage (remind you of Frat Row? is that a Solo cup in the back?) I heard one say, "Lord let me live, and I'll never eat kale again." And, "The light....so bright...ohh God, my eyes."

Actually, it was sort of a tough day for many creatures great and small, including these bellicose kangaroos

And these...antelope? Bison? Great Horned Mountain Trolls? were butting heads over control of their paper mache rocks.

Still smarter than the War of 1812. zzzziing!

I've often wondered what birds like this eat. Fish? Nuts? Smaller toucans? The St. L Zoo has a lot of helpful helpers, and the aviary was practically empty, so I inquired as to this feathered friend's particular gustatory preferences. Not only did the Zoo Helper tell me the specifics, she let me have a look at this particular species' main source of sustenance :

Follow your nose! (Just kidding. They eat real fruit or insects. Actually, there's probably plenty of grasshopper legs in the stuff Kellogg's puts out, so perhaps we've got more in common with our nasally-gifted brethren than we thought.)

Tigers, though, prefer meatier fare.

This poor woman was visiting the seals but fell into the tank a few months back. I'd say she's really making the best of it. The sign said she's a rare species called Obsessiveus Compulsivus.

There were actually two animals I couldn't name (maybe some sort of homo variety?) but which had clearly escaped their confines, and who many visitors took to be wild and unpredictable, but who were, in fact, just brimming with enthusiasm.

&nbs… — We have our OWN cage in the primate house!!