The Zoos and Natural History Museums of Paris

On Saturday, my parents and I went to stay at an apartment in Paris. We stayed for 2 days before flying home to Dublin on Monday. During my stay, we visited the two zoos, Parc Zoologique de Paris, and Menagerie du Jardin des Plantes. I also visited the two natural history museums in the Jardin des Plantes.

We went to Paris Zoo on the day we arrived and after settling in to our flat. I especially enjoyed seeing the manatees (les lamantins) in the glasshouse, as I had never seen a manatee before. We also managed to shoot videos of wolverines (les gloutons) with Dad’s phone, as this was another new species for us. We also saw the great rock and the vultures in the enclosure next to it. The zoo also had Eurasian otters, like the one I saw in the East Coast Nature Reserve, though we didn’t manage to see any here. All in all, this is a pretty good zoo.

I previously visited the Zoo in 2006 when I was very little, but it was far more mediocre than it is now. They closed shortly after in 2008 and reopened in 2014 following refurbishment.

We visited the two natural history museums on the Sunday. Le Galerie d’Anatomie comparée et de Paléantologie has the skeletons of living animals at the bottom floor, as well as jars containing specimens of conjoined twins, and on the top floor, there are fossils of prehistoric creatures, including dinosaurs such as Diplodocus and Allosaurus and ancient mammals such as mammoths and ground sloths. Le Grande Galerie de l’Évolution has taxidermised specimens of a whole range of different animals, mostly living species but with some recently extinct ones in the salle des espèces menacées et disparues (hall of threatened and extinct species. What’s most notable is perhaps the caravan of African animals and I had my picture taken with the African elephant and calf at the front. We also saw Siam, the Asian elephant who once lived in Paris Zoo, near the escalator and I found it a bit funny when I saw the giraffe looking down from the balcony.

These two museums are located in the Jardin des Plantes, which is also home of the Menagerie. The Menagerie, which is the world’s second oldest zoo, houses some favourites of mine like the red panda and Bornean orangutan. But it also features animals that we had not seen before, like the clouded leopard and the kea. We also caught a glimpse of a quoll, a fox-like marsupial related to the Tasmanian devil. Oh, I forget that there were takins there, but I did not see them. However, I did see them in the Highland Wildlife Park but those were of the Mishmi subspecies, whereas the takin in Paris were Sichuan takin. Anyway, I loved the Menagerie!

During November 2018, my whole family (all four of us) went back to Paris. This time, we stayed for three nights, visiting the Menagerie on our first full day, and Paris Zoo the next day. At the Menagerie, we headed for the takin enclosure, and were very lucky to see one of the takin standing on its hind legs (its hooves propped up on the mesh) as it grazed on the bamboo overhanging the fence. We also saw the quolls, this time they hung around for a decent amount of time without running back indoors where we couldn’t see them. I managed to get several pictures of the quolls with my sister’s camera, and a video on my phone. The following day, my mum and I went to Parc zoologique de Paris, which was still close enough to just walk to, even though we stayed somewhere different this time. I once again enjoyed observing the manatees as they were resting, rising up to the surface every few minutes to breathe, and the giant anteaters getting their enrichment. Changes since my last visit include six-banded armadillos, which were next door to the anteaters which they are closely related to, and the Chacoan peccary, a pig-like ungulate from South America, known only from fossils until discovered alive in the 1970s.