Ménagerie, le zoo du Jardin des Plantes

Ménagerie is the zoo inside the Paris Botanical Garden (Jardin des Plantes). The Botanical Garden is a large piece of green space on the left bank of Paris, and it offers free entry to every visitor. In the middle of the big garden is the Ménagerie zoo, which is not free of charge. It's very easy to find the zoo after you get into the botanical garden because, just like other zoos, this zoo smells stinky. Just follow the smell and you'll quickly find where the zoo is!

This zoo is small and compact. Although the zoo doesn't take up a large ground space and there's not a large number of animals inside, it contains some uncommon animal species, such as the red panda, the binturong, the cassowary, etc.. Now, have a look at my photos and you'll know what animals are kept in this zoo.

Here come the llamas. I guess nowadays everyone knows what llamas are because they frequently occur on TV and they look cute. Apparently one of them was curious about my camera as it kept looking in this direction when I was photoing them.

Actually, llamas are kept together with rheas in this zoo, probably due to the fact that they are both originally from South America.

What's this? Sorry but I don't remember its name. It's likely to be a crane. This bird was also interested in my camera.

This vigilant bird is a houbara bustard. This bird just walks and doesn't fly. Most houbara bustards are from Africa, but this one is from Asia.

This big bird doesn't fly, either. It looks like an ostrich, huh? Yes, it lives in Australia and looks like an ostrich, but its personality is very different from that of an ostrich. If you google 'the most dangerous bird' or 'the most violent bird', you'll see its name: cassowary. Whenever a human walks closer to a cassowary, it becomes unhappy. If you get too close to it, it'll attack you with one of its sharp claws, and you'll be easily killed. Look at its eye in the second photo, don't you find it a little scary? I didn't photo its claws, but they were definitely strong and sharp.

These two fluffy animals are red pandas. Although they are called 'pandas', they don't look very similar to giant pandas, but they are as cute. One of them was resting on the bamboo, staring at me, and the other kept walking around. You can also see them from outside the zoo in the botanical garden.

Neighbouring the closure of red pandas was the closure of binturongs. There were many posters promoting binturongs, but unfortunately, I didn't see any beirutong there. Maybe they were hiding somewhere and sleeping.

This is a Malayan tapir. It looks like a wild boar, but its temper is much milder. It doesn't attack humans, and it eats only plants.

This animal looks like a fish, but in fact, it's an amphibian called axolotl. It has another name - Mexican salamander. Does this name sound more familiar to you? It does to me. Mexican salamanders are sometimes kept as pets because they look cute when they are very young. I had seen much younger Mexican salamanders, but when I saw this one, I couldn't recognise it.

Above is only a minority of the animals I saw in this zoo. There are also other exciting animals. Since this zoo is small and compact, it took me only one and a half hours to finish seeing all the animals, and I didn't feel I had walked a lot.