Sort-of zoo

We visited the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum on Monday.  I call it a sort-of zoo because it's actually more than a zoo.  The animals are ones found in Arizona.  But it's also a botanical garden with Arizona plants.  And it's a natural history museum with sections on geology and paleontology.

The geology section was pretty fantastic with different rocks and gems found in the state.  They even had a piece of the moon that was brought back by Apollo 17 astronaut and geologist  Harrison Schmitt who was from New Mexico.

Most of the animals were pretty sleepy in the hot afternoon, animals like a mountain lion, a bear, deer, beaver, and porcupines.  One that I was looking forward to seeing was a javelina.  They aren't pigs, but they look like ones.  Several people mentioned seeing them wild all the time.  We haven't seen them in the wild yet, but at least we got to see them here.

There's a couple of sections where you can go into an aviary to see hummingbirds and birds.  The humming birds were the most fun.  They fly so quickly.  At one point they are right in front of you (looking perfect for a picture) and then they fly past your head before you can snap the picture.  Very camera shy. 

There was a section on bats.  The ears are showing how big our ears would be if we were bats.  Very fetching, don't you think?