Monkeying Around at the Norfolk Zoo!

      My family and I had a great time visiting our local zoo recently. The weather wasn’t the greatest and a lot of the animals were hiding out of sight, but the Virginia Zoo in Norfolk is a great place to spend the day if you have the chance. They have so many different animal exhibits that it’s hard to say which one was my favorite. I really enjoyed the giraffe’s because the walkway you travel puts you at eye level with these insanely tall animals. My daughter only knows a few words so she was yelling out our dogs name at the giraffes thinking that’s their names as well. Another interesting pair of animals were these two white cheeked gibbons they had that were swinging from branches and playing, despite the rainy weather. There was one white female gibbon named Asia and one black male named Dexter, both ranging from about twelve to twenty pounds. Both were born in captivity but originally their species are from Vietnam and South China. The thing I like a lot about these guys is that they are able to climb around the entire area in seconds, leaping from branch to branch, making it look easy. They also share the habitat with several Asian Small Clawed Otters in which Dexter likes to tease to keep himself occupied! These guys eat mostly leaves, bark, fruit, and flowers, but they also eat insects, spiders, and bird eggs.  Unfortunately this specific mammal is nearly extinct and has been placed on the critically endangered species list due to hunting and habitat loss.

            They have countless great exhibits with incredible animals at the Norfolk Zoo that everyone should go see. While the White Cheeked Gibbon’s were an amazing creature that I could sit back and watch all day; they were only my second favorite species at the zoo that day. My favorite creatures at the zoo were another species of monkey that were obviously mislabeled by someone. They were labeled as Homo Sapiens but I know they were monkeys by their erratic behavior. The oldest was a female named Jordanne who was obviously the ring leader of these tiny terrorists. The young male was an eleven year old monkey named Austin. He had been all over the world before Norfolk, yet he still didn’t seem to know how to act right. The youngest little one was a female named Avril, she looked so mean it scared me. I knew monkeys had been known to throw their feces at people before and I’m fairly certain she was fully loaded and ready to fire at any time! These three monkeys made my visit to the zoo a great experience. As wild as they were, I felt compelled to open the gate and take them home with me afterwards. You may not see the same exact monkeys when you visit, but I assure you that if you get your own monkeys together for a trip to the Norfolk Zoo you won’t regret it. Visit http://virginiazoo.org/  for more information and visit soon.