2-23-13 - Wild Life Sydney Zoo, Darling Harbour

2^nd stop Wild Life Sydney Zoo, Darling Harbour!

• Butterfly Tropics
• Represented the tropical Top End, with distinct wet and dry seasons, consistent 33C average temperature and enough sun and water to maintain lush greenery and billabongs all year round. There was a diverse range of animals living in the habitat, butterflies flitting through lush ferns and palms to turtles, fish, birds and frogs!
• Devil’s Den
• There are two Tasmanian Devils, Oreo and Big John.
• Tasmanian Devils can only be found on the island of Tasmania. However fossils have been found across much of mainland Australia suggesting a much larger distribution in the past.
• Devils are not fussy eaters, devouring almost anything they can catch. They are also quite happy to scavenge on dead animals…after all it's much easier to catch. There are no left overs at a devil meal they will even consume bones!
• Devils play an incredibly important role in their environment as a predator regulating the food chain and a scavenger removing dead animals from the landscape.
• Gum Tree Valley
• Nothing says "Australia" like the distinctive eucalyptus smell of gum trees. The trees are found all along Australia's East Coast, and especially in New South Wales. The famous Blue Mountains are named after them because of the bluish haze that come off the gum trees on hot days - and the same oil that makes this haze makes the delicious smell.
• Gum tree forests like a cooler and drier environment, and are so thick they make lots of homes for a huge variety of birds including the kookaburra - which laugh a lot! Gum trees drop a lot of leaves and bark the forest floor which give places for goannas, lizards and snakes to hide.
• Koalas (which aren't bears at all - they're marsupials!) can only eat the leaves of special types of gum trees, but because the leaves aren't very nutritious the lucky koala gets to cling to a branch and munch his favourite food all day long.
• Wallaby Cliffs
• Millions of years ago, Australia had its own majestic mountains, just like the ones in Europe. But time and the elements have slowly worn them into the jagged cliffs and grassy plains of what we now call the Flinders Ranges in South Australia.
• This diverse terrain with cold winters and warm summers is home to only the toughest, most well adapted Australian Animals. It doesn't rain much and food can be scarce, so nimble Yellow-footed Rock Wallabies use their tails for balance as they scamper along the escarpments looking for a meal, while Sherman the Southern Hairy-nosed Wombat ambles around munching grasses and finding shelter down deep burrows!
• Daintree Rainforest
• Rainforests are the most ecologically diverse places on the planet. There are several layers of vegetation, home to loads of unique, beautiful and sometimes bizarre plants and animals.
• The canopy is around 20-40 metres off the ground, and stops most of the sunlight from reaching the under story. Only about two percent of the light gets through all the layers to the rainforest floor.
• The Southern Cassowary is a real beauty, with its sleek, black feathered body, bright blue neck, and deep red wattles. They are the third- largest bird in the world, behind their relatives the ostrich and the emu, with some specimens weighing up to 70 kilograms and towering up to 1.5 metres tall!
• There was one cassowary, affectionately named Princess. Despite his rather girly name, he is actually a male.  He is just a cassowary whom happens to be very high maintenance!
• Princess loves to have showers to cool down in the summer, however he doesn't like to get his feet wet above his ankles!
• Cassowaries are considered to be the world's deadliest birds, with a razor sharp claw, and a huge casque on their head. When the keepers go in to tend to Princess, they do so behind a 'cassowary shield'. This can make doing work within the display tricky as multiple staff are required to carry the shield, keep an eye on Princess, and get the work done. Despite all this effort, Princess never seems very impressed when the keepers make any changes to his home.
• The Australian population of the Southern Cassowary has suffered a severe decline in numbers due to the destruction of their habitat, vehicle strikes, dog attacks and competition and predation by feral animals.
• The Little Red-legged Pademelon is closely related to wallabies and kangaroos, and is one of the smallest of the macropod family. They are shy animals, often hard to spot hidden amongst the ground cover of the rainforest.
• There are two, Rockmelon and Watermelon - who share their home with Princess the Cassowary. The Pademelons are actually mother and daughter, with the younger one born right in the Daintree Rainforest enclosure!
• Pademelons are usually found alone, but they gather together when they are feeding, foraging on leaves, berries, grasses and fruit.
• Watermelon and Rockmelon are very close and can often be witnessed cuddling and grooming each other.
• Kangaroo Walkabout
• I saw Eastern Grey Kangaroos, Agile Wallabies, echidnas and Princess Parrots.
• I was able to 'walk-about' where the wallabies and roos are free to roam – so they hop around you to say hello!
• The wallabies, roos and echidnas were raised from babies by people, so they are accustomed to human interaction.
• Kakadu Gorge
• The Northern Territory's Top End landscape, ranges from deep gorges and grasslands to floodplains and estuary flats. The Top End is a monsoonal area, which means there are only two seasons, wet and dry.
• The dry season runs from May to September, during which humidity is low and rain stays away. This is followed by two months of what locals call the 'build-up', where thunderstorms roll in and the Top End records more lightning strikes than any other place on the planet. Then begins the wet season - the heat is ceaseless and water rules the landscape with sudden billabongs and waterfalls appearing out nowhere… just like magic.
• The terrifying Saltwater Crocodile is an amazing creature. It's the largest reptile in the world, measuring over six metres from tip to tail and weighing up to a mind-boggling 1200 kilograms. The saltwater croc Rex is one of the bigger ones at over five metres long!
• Saltwater crocs (or 'salties') are also known as Estuarine Crocodiles or Indopacific Crocodiles because they can live happily in both salt water and fresh water environments.
• The crocodile is a patient, clever hunter, waiting by the riverbank with only its nostrils and eyes above the water, ready to pounce on anything unlucky enough to come close! Their green-grey colour means they are perfectly camouflaged under the water, and they can hold their breath for over two hours!
• They can feast on anything including cattle and water buffalo, grasping them with their fearsome teeth and performing the incredible 'death roll', where they spins their bodies around to drown their prey and twist pieces off, ready to be devoured.
• There are also two Perenties, Jasper and Prudence. Jasper is the quiet achiever. He's a gentleman who will happily share his food, and whilst he is a gentle giant, he is also very dignified and walks with his head held high. He's a Lizard's Lizard, and loved by the keepers. Prue, on the other hand, is a bit of a snob, and very skittish. She is a bit of a diva, and is a high maintenance female.
• Perenties are excellent predators with razor sharp teeth and huge claws, and will feed on almost anything they can overpower. Their teeth are designed for holding, not chewing, so they eat their food whole, throwing it down their throat. These huge lizards live around rocky outcrops, gorges and sandy ridges. They dig extensive burrows with their powerful front legs and claws.
• Nightfall
• Have you ever heard something spooky go "bump" in the night? Well, what if you heard a slither, a skitter, a swoop or a twitter? The soft fall of a paw… then the ominous click of a claw? And what if you weren't home in bed with a light switch handy, but in the middle of a sandy, moonlit plain with gleaming animal eyes tracking your every move?
• The weirdest and most wonderful creatures venture out after all the other animals have gone to bed - some want to escape the heat of the midday sun, while others know the best meals are had late at night, but all have unique adaptations to find their way around, from the echolocation of bats to the Bilby's pin-sharp ears and keen sense of smell. And it's easy to guess how the tiny, mouse-like Dunnart finds its way around, with its huge eyes and long, sensitive whiskers helping it find beetles, grubs and larvae.
• Ghost Bats - With their leathery wings, mouse like bodies and nocturnal habits, it's no wonder so many people think Bats are spooky creatures of the night, just waiting to turn into a vampire! By the light of day they are as beautiful as any other animal - Australia's 75 species of bat have some surprises in store, but none of them are frightening!
•  Bats are the only type of mammal that flies, which is how they found their way to Australia. Bats are split into two groups, Megabats and Microbats. Megabats tend to be larger, feed on fruit and nectar, and include the Fruit bats seen in and around Sydney. Microbats love to gobble insects and find their way at night with the help of "echolocation" which means they emit high-pitched sounds and listen for the echoes back with their sensitive ears.
• The amazing Ghost Bat is a microbat - and it's well-named with its white-furred belly giving it a ghostly appearance as it glides on nearly see-through wings.
• The beautiful Greater Bilby is a shy little creature, preferring to hide in its spiral-shaped burrow during the day and only coming out at night. Even though they look cute with their long ears, pointy nose, crested tail and lovely soft blue-grey fur, they're tough and have many adaptations to help them survive their home range of arid semi-desert environments and shrub lands in Queensland, the Northern Territory and Western Australia.
• Bilbies dig spiral burrows with their stout forelegs and strong claws, and then seal the entrance with dirt behind them. Bilbies eat both plants and insects and never need to drink because they get all the water they need from their food. They have excellent hearing and a keen sense of smell to help them track down their dinner, using their long tongues to slurp up insect larvae, spiders, seeds, fungi and grasses.
• Nationally, the Greater Bilby is on the brink of extinction and is listed as a vulnerable species.