By Emily S:
On the 10th of April, I travelled to the small locality of Monarto. Monarto is about a forty five minute drive from Adelaide, South Australia. The main attraction of Monarto is the open-range zoological park. Many wild animals are on display at the park, yet the best component of the zoo, is that the animals have much more room than an ordinary zoo. I went on a bus tour of the park with a guide explaining each animal’s habits as we went past. I found the carnivore section very intriguing as it was feeding time at the zoo, so to speak. The lions devoured a turkey leg in mere seconds!! I inquired many questions, one of which was about animals ability to recognise another of their species as their relative in the mating season. According to the guide, most animals can tell, and only mate with their sibling as a result of low numbers in their species. Cheetahs have a limited gene pool as their species were close to extinction and they were forced to mate with their relatives, causing severely weakened immune systems.. Humans closest relatives, the primates, were most fascinating. Chimps are able to read and produce facial expressions, which was a serendipitous piece of information, as it relates closely to the topic of my major science project. All in all it was a fabulous day, and I retained much useful information about the many species that they had to show there.