THE MELBOURNE ZOO
By Chloe and Sarah
| The Melbourne Zoo is located only minutes from the city centre, within Royal Park. Car parking is available or visitors can take the tram or train from the city centre. It is a place where people go to see animals that you would not usually see in the wild, like monkeys, lions, tigers and seals. The Melbourne Zoo is the oldest zoo in Australia and more than 350 animals that are housed there come from different countries. A zoo takes care of the wild animals and puts them on display. There are shops at the Melbourne Zoo where they sell souvenirs of the Zoo. |  |
 The baby gorilla called, Yakini. |
The zoo has a Big Cat Complex which is
for all the big cats including lions and tigers, leopards
and cheetahs. Cats at the zoo are fed five times per week
The Melbourne Zoo has a Reptile House. It has snakes, lizards and crocodiles. It is like walking through a swamp. The Frog enclosure or the amphibian exhibit is next to the Reptile house, some frogs look friendly, but have a viscous venom. There are many different types of monkeys at the zoo. They live in the rainforest houses. Sometimes if you walk into the rainforest you will see them hanging on the trees and sometimes you can see them sleeping in the trees. There are gorillas in there too. A couple of months ago one off gorillas had a baby called, Yakini. The first Orangutan was purchased in 1882, after the entrance fee was introduced. He was 18 months old and became known as Tommy Dodd. |
| The Melbourne Zoo's Butterfly House is a large tropical glasshouse housing about 12 species of butterflies. People can walk inside the Butterfly house to see all the beautiful butterflies, some may even land on top of your head! There are about 800 butterflies in the Butterfly House. They have artificial nectar feeders for the adult butterflies, leaves and plants for the caterpillars, high temperature and humidity in the house and a lot of room to fly around. |
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There is an underground water tank
where you can see seals swimming through glass windows.
Sometimes they take the seals into an outside pool and
make them do tricks and if they're good they give them a
fish.. In another area there is
a large tank with a platypus in it. A platypus is a
monotreme which is a warm blooded animal that lay eggs
and is only found in Australia. |
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