Disney World's Animal Kingdom

[lunashimmer]

Last week at Disney World's Animal Kingdom, we were in the Africa section of the park and were wandering through the Pangani Forest Exploration Trail. In one of the indoor huts was a display with a tarantula, a scorpion, a den of naked molerats, some mice, and a couple tortoises. The tarantula was labelled as a "Mombasa Starburst" so I knew right away it was an OBT (P. murinus), but I thought I'd test the employee's knowledge and asked what the scientific name was. She shivered as if disgusted and said she didn't know. I then told her we had 10 tarantulas at home and she looked about ready to run away from us screaming. :sarcasm:

Anyway, the OBT was all webbed up in the corner of his tank, which was very clean, by the way. He had a large water dish and there were no cricket carcasses strewn about. Right next door to him was a scorpion; I assume it was an emperor scorp but he was hard to see as he was under some rocks. I can't remember the common name on the placard. His tank was very clean too. I was impressed with the care that Disney took with its less desirable inhabitants.

As a aside, we also saw the world's largest pigeon, the Victoria Crowned Pigeon--beautiful!; flying giant fruit bats (Wingspans of 6 feet--it was dusk and they were just waking up and stretching their wings--it was so cool!); a Bengal tiger meowing (it did not sound like a cat meow AT ALL :; and heard and saw a meerkat's "danger!" call and its response among the tribe of 'kats.

 

[tarantulagirl10]

I saw that t at Animal Kingdom last year. There is also a nice big L parahybana at the place in the park that you ride the train to. It's the same place with the petting zoo outside. Anyway, all of the animals looked cared for to me too.