The Living Rainforest - by James
On Thursday, we visited the Living Rainforest. When we got there the first thing we went to see was the dwarf crocodile. Sadly, I did not see it.
Animals
After learning about the dwarf crocodile we all walked with Diane, our tour guide, to the Carpet Python cage. The Carpet Python was curled up under the broken wooden step. I learnt that a snake’s head is in two halves so that they can swallow their dead prey whole! After that, we went to see the Goeldi’s monkey and the Azara’s Agouti. I learnt that the Azara’s Agouti is the only animal that can break Brazil nut pods. No Agouti’s, no brazil nuts!
The fourth enclosure we went to was the fish enclosure. The most noticeable two were the Tambquin and the Stingray. The Tambquin is a very strange fish, it has teeth! Human teeth! Another noticeable feature is it’s size, it is huge! There are so many things that I can talk about so I shall tell you about the cacao tree and then move onto exploring.
The Cacao Tree
The Cacao tree in Greek is Theobroma Cacao meaning ‘Food of the Gods’. Cacao produces Cocoa and Chocolate but raw, straight out of the pod and are very bitter. The pods are harvested twice a year by hand, so the beans inside are not damaged. All this means chocolate grows on trees!
Exploring
After lunch my small group, Mrs Wood, Fred, me, Maia, Francesca and Ethan went exploring. We kept on going back to the dwarf crocodile but we never saw it. The most exciting point of exploring was seeing the African giant snail. It certainly lived up to its name, it was huge! Well, it was bigger than UK snails but not as bit as I expected. Nevertheless it was very exciting.
Conclusion
I had a wonderful time despite it being boiling and very humid. I would definitely go again.
