Visit the Zoo Day
Dec 27
Other Scottish Country Dances for this Day
Today's Musings, History & Folklore
"There are lions and roaring tigers, and enormous camels and things,
There are biffalo-buffalo-bisons, and a great big bear with wings.
There's a sort of a tiny potamus, and a tiny nosserus too -
But I gave buns to the elephant when I went down to the Zoo!"
~ At the Zoo, A.A. Milne (1882-1956)
The predecessor of the modern zoological garden is the menagerie, which has a long history from the ancient world to modern times. The oldest known zoological collection was revealed during excavations at Hierakonpolis, Egypt of a 3500 BCE menagerie. The exotic animals included hippopotami, hartebeest, elephants, baboons and wildcats! Today's zoos and sanctuaries concentrate on education and wildlife conservation. If you are google docs user, you may be familiar with the zoo of animal icons which show up when sharing documents - they include real, extinct, and even fictitious animals, from Armadillo to Wombat. 🦓🐘🦄
The Zoologist
The predecessor of the modern zoological garden is the menagerie, which has a long history from the ancient world to modern times. The oldest known zoological collection was revealed during excavations at Hierakonpolis, Egypt, of a 3500 BCE menagerie. The exotic animals included hippopotami, hartebeest, elephants, baboons and wildcats.
Until the early 19th century, the function of a zoo was often to symbolize royal power, like King Louis XIV's menagerie at Versailles. The modern zoo, focussing on providing educational exhibits to the public for entertainment and inspiration, emerged in the early 19th century at London, Paris and Dublin.
Many of today's zoos hope to stop or slow the decline of many endangered species, using zoo resources to breeding endangered species in captivity and reintroduce them into the wild. Modern zoos also aim to help educate visitors on the importance of animal conservation.
For a list of some unusual zoos, click the toy animals. And to see the dance performed at the St. Andrew's Summer School 2013 (showing the "Snake Pass" figure), see below.
Click the dance cribs or description below to link to a printable version of the dance!
