Leaping Cats

Location: San Diego, California, USA
Address: 2920 Zoo Dr.
Date: Feb 2014
Website: www.sandiegozoo.org

    The year 2020 is a leap year.  This February 29th we celebrate one of the animal world's greatest leapers.  The serval is a cat that can jump over 9 feet into the air and over 11 feet distance horizontally.  This allows it to snatch a passing bird right out of the sly.

  We witnessed the serval's jumping skills first hand at the San Diego Zoo.  At the San Diego Zoo Safari Park another cat showed off its skills.  In the photo above a caracal launched itself and twisted upside down so it was parallel to the ground.  It did this to catch a little fuzzy toy that was spun around by a string.

  A caracal (above) can also leap over 9 feet into the air. The caracal wins the beauty pageant and ties in the high jump but the serval is the better hunter.  Both cats are relatively small and weigh up to 18kg.

  The serval has the biggest ears of any cat and the best hearing.  It also has the longest legs in proportion to its body.  Not to mention that it has black stripes that resemble those of a tiger.  Its long legs let it snatch rodents down tunnels and its curved claws let it hook fish right out of the water.

   It is said that when a serval pounces at prey it makes a successful kill 50 percent of the time.  In the video above it looks like it grabbed the toy 2 out of 3 times.  A leap year success rate is 1 out of every 4.

---

Map of Our World
San Diego Zoo (Backstage Pass) , San Diego Zoo Safari Park (Cheetah Run)

---

Post # 279

Secretary Birds

Location: San Diego, California, USA
Address: 2920 Zoo Dr.
Date: Feb 2014
Website: www.sandiegozoo.org

  Take a memo.  File these reports.  Cancel my 10 o'clock.  These birds have nothing to do with this kind of secretary.  In fact these days someone performing this type of work would be an administrative assistant.  Also, more and more, these tasks might be performed with a cellphone.  Anyway, having one of these almost four feet tall birds strutting around the office would probably freak people right out.
  We have seen secretary birds at the Toronto Zoo as well as at both the San Diego Zoo & San Diego Zoo Safari Park.  In the wild they can be found in the savannahs of Africa. If you see them up close they have some wonderful eyelashes and red and yellow around their eyes. 

  You can tell from their beaks that they are a bird of prey.  You can also tell that they are very strong.    We enjoy watching them walk around on their extra long legs.  (See the video at the bottom of this post for a bit of walking, but mostly standing, by one of these impressive birds). In fact they prefer not to fly, but capture most of their food by stomping it to death.  Their food usually consists of small mammals and reptiles.  They appear on many stamps, flags and emblems across Africa and after seeing a few of them for ourselves we can understand why they are so admired. 

---

Map of Our World
San Diego Zoo (Secretary Birds)

---

Post # 74