When we visited the Houston Zoo on Wednesday, we spent some time watching the South American Maned Wolf.
With its shorter snout and tall pointed ears, this critter’s face looks more like a fox than a wolf, and its slender body and extremely long legs made me think of it as a sort of canine version of a Cheetah. The other thing you can’t help but notice is that Maned Wolves mark their territory with a musk that smells an awful lot like a plain old North American Skunk!
Just before we went up onto the viewing platform, we met a couple of young women pushing baby strollers. Walking along with them was a little boy who appeared to be 12 to 15 months old. He stared at me, and when I smiled at him he smiled back and followed me onto the platform.
Once the ladies had maneuvered their strollers up the ramp, one of them asked me if the little guy was with us.
“No,” I said. “I thought he was with you.”
She picked him up and headed back the way they had come. She hadn’t got far – 50 feet, or so – when she was met by a young man with his arms wide open and a big grin on his face.
“Hey, Buster,” he said in a bright, cheery voice. “Did you make some new friends?”
I still can’t decide whether this guy was:
(a) Super Dad carefully disguising his fear and concern to keep from upsetting his child, or
(b) a total nitwit who should never have been allowed to have unprotected sex.
No comments:
Post a Comment