jardin des plantes

galerie d'anatomie comparée

my favorite place in paris...le jardin des plantes. i could spend days lost and happy here, and i fervently hope that someday i'm given the opportunity just to make sure that were so.  or at least that i get to see it again in the near future.   preferably in the spring.  and even more preferably on an expense account.   anyone want to join me?

we (astrid and i--rich and gus had had enough of that "nature stuff," troglodytes that they are) started at the muséum national d'histoire naturelle, then through the main part of the jardin, then le ménagerie, and ended with the galeries d'anatomie comparée et de paléontologie. even with all that, we missed quite a bit. it is a gorgeous site with a tremendous history to it, topped off by the fact that an underground river, le bièvre, runs underneath the length of it.

i'm so ready to return!

right before we arrived at le jardin des plantes, we happened to see this guy eating crabapples in a tree next to us--a wild parrot of paris! i love the wild parrots--they're little survivors.

side view, musée national d'histoire naturelle (decorated for christmas)

le grande galerie d'evolution

viburnum...? it's impressive whatever it is, and it is blooming in late december.

sophie diving into the jaws of death

baby red panda!

flock of flamingoes!

scarlet ibis!

how lucky were we...another wild parrot! this one was stealing food from his caged brethern.

you know it's going to be an interesting exhibition when you're confronted with something like this at the entrance--this was at the front of the galerie d'anatomie comparée

astrid checking out little big cat skulls (of course)

whale filters, for eating plankton

whale arm--i love the giant wooden piece holding it all together. museum factoid: collection repair goes through cycles where sometimes it is popular to make repairs obvious (as in this case), and later swings back to making the additions appear exactly the same as the material being repaired so you can't see the fixin' up. neato.

brrrrraaaaains! "raton laveur" = raccoon. that's a good sized brain for such a little body.

so many vertebrates. loved it here!