Smithsonian National Zoo: Amazonia, part 5

The Amphibian Lab is an amazing place to study amphibians.  

Blue PD Frog, Dendrobates tinctorius azureus

Bumblebee PD Frog, Dendrobates leucomelas

A Blue PD Frog, and a pair of Dyeing PD Frogs, Dendrobates tinctorius

Red-spotted Newt, Notophthalmus viridescens

African Clawed Frog, Xenopus laevis

Panamanian Golden PD Frog, Atelopus zeketi

Smithsonian National Zoo: Amazonia, part 4

You exit the Tropical Rainforest through a double door that places into a lobby.  There are doors ahead of you, and on your left are exits.  I've seen people assume that's all the place has to offer and leave.  They're wrong.  After you enjoy the giant beetle on the wall made of hundreds of little beetle specimen, you should walk toward the doors and you'll discover a stairway on the other side of the beetle wall that leads to a lower level with a large amphibian lab and a more modest live coral reefs lab. 

Smithsonian National Zoo: Amazonia, part 3

When you leave the gallery, you have two choices: 1) a spiralling stareway, or the elevator.  Because you are about to head up to the main show.  The upper level contains a facsimile of the Amazon Rainforest full of flora and fauna.  Birds fly freely around the huge conservatory.  Also there are a pair of Bolivian Titi Monkeys, and on certain days even a wonderful Southern Two-toed Sloth.  The presentation is a trail through this jungle.  The vistas delight you with lush vegetation, the sounds from waterfalls, the calls of various bird species.  You can rush through, most people do, or you can do yourself a favor and linger.

Green Aracari, Pteroglossus viridis

Bolivian Titi Monkey, Callicebus donacophilus 

Hawk-headed Parrot, Deroptyus accipitrinus

Roseate Spoonbill, Platalea ajaja

Smithsonian National Zoo: Amazonia, part 2

After you first encounter with the 'jungle', you turn and enter a cavernous corridor that gives you a below the river surface view of the huge 'river' aquarium that flows along the right side of the upper floor jungle conservatory.  It provides a marvelous view of the fish, some impressively large.

The walls are lined with murals and images with information about contemporary life and culture.  In typical Smithsonian fashion, there are even artifacts from its massive collections on display.

You also enter a gallery of aquariums where you can get up close and personal with some of the other wildlife native to the amazon basin.  The lionshare of the exhibits feature eels and knife fish, but you will also find a Matamata turtle, a Goliath Bird-eating Spider and aquariums dedicated to some of the more common freshwater fish from the domestic aquarium trade.  There's a lot to take in if you take the time to enjoy it.

There are interactive displays, some even a little shocking...

Matamata, Chelus fimbriata

One of the Tropical Fish aquariums.

A very curious, Goliath Bird-eating Spider, Theraphosa blondi

At one point a women stepped up to look, too.  She made a face and said "ooyuuu" softly.  I turned and made eye-contact and said, "I know.  But the weird thing is, just a minute ago there were two of them in there..."  She did not think my attempt at humor very funny.

Amazon Milk Frog, Trachycephalus resinifictrix, and brunch...

Smithsonian National Zoo: Amazonia, part 1

When you visit the Smithsonian National Zoo in Washington, DC, you are visiting one of the finest and oldest zoological parks in North America.  Granted, not in the top 10 oldest, but totally in the top 10%.  It's an institution with an A-List designer at its inception.  Frederick Law Olmsted (who designed both Central Park AND the art of Park Design) was commissioned to do the initial design adjacent to the larger Rock Creek Park in 1889.  While many, many upgrades have occured over the 130 years since, the same sense of organic balance and primacy of the natural world that are the hallmarks of all of his work remains present.  Chief among these is the main thoroughfare between the bottom of the zoo at Rock Creek and the top at Connecticut Avenue, NW.  Many guest no doubt spend their time traversing this steep incline and by the shear scope of exhibits presented there, never make their way at bottom past the Farm around to the American Trail.  It's a pity, because between the two sits an amazing component of the zoo called Amazonia.

Amazonia is a building that houses a multi-storied Amazonian Rainforest with an aquarium lab featuring a host of lesser included species, a separate area dedicated to Amphibians with an emphasis on Poison Dart Frogs, a Coral Reef Lab with aquariums featuring coral species, and other meeting rooms and research labs.  Top to bottom, it is an amazing place.

When you enter, the first thing you encounter is pool with fish and river rays.  It is also home to bird species.  The trees and flora that start out in this space rise up to join the vegetation on the upper level.  This gives you the sense of observing nature in the Amazon from the vantage point of a minor palisade along the bank of a quite tributary. 

The first view from the entrance.

A fish-eye view.

The above water habitat.

Looking down at the same habitat from the upper level.

The DoJ in Washington, DC

With all of this talk about impeachment and all the players who may or may not have violated their oaths of office and communitted unconstitutional and/or treasonist acts again the United States of America, I thought you might like to see the door leading into the offices of the Department of Justice on Pennsylvania Avenue, NW in Washington, DC.  Until yesterday, I couldn't have told you where it was!  By chance, I found myself walking along Penn Ave and "wow", there it was.

I swear, if it has been emerald green, I would have thought I had just landed in OZ!  I somehow feel like there has to be another entrance somewhere that people actually use to enter and exit the building.

A little further on I saw that there were quotes engraved into the facade of the building above the second floor windows.  This one caught my attention.  It seemed most fitting to our present malieu.  As I stopped to read and then lifted my camera to take the picture, an African American couple standing nearby noticed, and they also turned and looked up at the quote.  When they looked back around our eyes met and in shared sly exchange.

I said, "Ain't that the fucking truth?"

The woman replied, "Amen!"

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