The Buenos Aires City Zoo is full of surprises

Either they have been doing some extreme experiments in genetic engineering down here, or South American animals are just very different.  To be fair, the zoo did not seem all that well maintained, so it’s very possible that the animals are escaping frequently and doing some of their own ‘genetic engineering’ if you know what I mean.

In reality, there are at least 2 reasons why this zoo is worth checking out:

1)  The crazy, crazy animals

2)  The fact that many of the crazy, crazy animals roam free throughout the grounds rather than being confined to a cage

Let’s start with a few of the crazy animals (which also happen to be roaming free):

Exhibit A:  Duck + Turkey = Durkey?

Buenos Aires Zoo Turkey/Duck Image

Duck? Turkey? Durkey?? And no, this is not a one-off weird looking duck, there are tons of these running around and they all look the same

Exhibit B:  Beaver/Gopher/Hedgehog = BeapherHog?

Giant Hedgehog thing image

This is kind of like a giant hedgehog...

Buenos Aires City Zoo Gopher thing image

...except that it has webbed feet in the back, bright orange teeth and an attitude.

Exhibit C:  Our personal favorite, the Rabbit/Deer = Dabbit?

Buenos Aires City Zoo:  Rabbit/Deer Image

What are you???

Buenos Aires City Zoo:  Rabbit/Deer 2 image

They are decently big and they run free all over the zoo. They seem a little skittish, but friendly. And very, very weird.

The above three animals (Durkeys, BeapherHogs and Dabbits) are all over the zoo, just kind of hanging out.   Other animal hybrid creations apparently are less friendly and need to be kept in cages.  For instance…

Exhibit D:  The Tapir

Buenos Aires City Zoo:  Tapir Image

Tapir = cross between anteater and wild boar? He looks sad--it might be because he's so weird looking.

Buenos Aires City Zoo:  Tapir 2 Image

Seriously, what are you???

Exhibit E:  These guys

Buenos Aires City Zoo:  Weird guys Image

No idea... kind of like the rabbit/deer things crossed with the giant hedgehog things. You may recognize the guy in the front as the actor that played Mr. Beaver in The Chronicles of Narnia movie

Exhibit F:  Anteater thing

Buenos Aires City Zoo:  Anteater thing Image

I think you are an anteater, but I have no idea. What I do know is that you could very easily wear a traffic cone as a helmet.

Buenos Aires City Zoo:  Anteater thing 2 Image

Nice piece of tail

Exhibit G:  Satan goat

Buenos Aires City Zoo:  Satan goat image

Do not mess with this goat, it will haunt your dreams

Exhibit H:  These guys

Buenos Aires City Zoo:  Baboon things Image

And on the seventh day, god had some extra spray paint to get rid of...

In addition to having animals that you’re unlikely to have ever seen before, there are some animals that would be normal-ish except that they seem to have gone a bit crazy.  For example:

Exhibit I:  Smiling Llama

Buenos Aires City Zoo:  Smiling Llama Image

He has lots of personality...

Buenos Aires City Zoo:  Smiling Llama 2 Image

...or possibly is just unable to close his mouth due his abnormally large lower teeth

Exhibit J:  Flaccid Camel

Buenos Aires City Zoo:  Flaccid Camel Image

I swear, this has never happened before...

Exhibit K:  Acro Elephant

Buenos Aires City Zoo:  Elephant Image

Hard to capture in a photo, but this elephant attempted to perform a head stand for a good 3 minutes. He almost fell down a few times. Then he started running around his pen erratically (often backwards). Could have had to do with the roaring lion that was next door, or he is just crazy.

There were lots of other more normal animals as well of course like lions and tigers and birds and stuff.  You can check out the rest of our photos in our photo gallery:  Buenos Aires City Zoo Photos

Just because the lemurs and the baby hippo were particularly entertaining we took a couple of videos:
Lemur fight:

Hippo teeth:

Logistics

The Buenos Aires City Zoo is located in Palermo right next to the Botanical Garden–The main entrance is right next to Plaza Italia and it costs AR$15/ticket for a general entrance or a little more if you want to go into the special attractions (which didn’t seem to be worth it).  It’s fully outdoors, so probably not fun in the rain.

Also, they have a pretty crazy website with more info, lots of pics/videos and annoying music:  http://www.zoobuenosaires.com.ar/index.php

Verdict

It’s cheap, it’s centrally located and it has most of the craziest animals we’ve ever seen.  It’s always a bit depressing to see caged animals and some of these animals looked pretty unhappy, but overall we enjoyed the zoo far more than we thought we would.  It shouldn’t be on the top of your list of things to do on a short vacation here, but it’s a fun way to spend a few hours and we’d highly recommend it.

Anyone out there have any idea what some of those animals are?

6 thoughts on “The Buenos Aires City Zoo is full of surprises

  1. Exhibit E is a capybara. It’s the world’s largest rodent. Because it is so large, it doesn’t seem quite so… rodent-y. But seriously. R.O.U.S.’s from The Princess Bride DO exist!

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