Zoo — Is That With a Zee Or a Zed?

A blogging challenge does end, finally. Good heavens, I just kept losing my nerve; other people quite rightly seemed tense; until verily we xclaimed, “Yay! Z!”

Stupid X.


All the animals in the zoo 
are jumping up and down for you 
— old TV ad for the Detroit Zoo (and other zoos)

Someone told me
It’s all happening at the zoo
I do believe it
I do believe it’s true
— Paul Simon

For my final post in the A to Z blogging challenge, I’ve decided to go to the zoo, so to speak. I intend to mention every animal on this planet from A to Z. It will be like a virtual Noah’s Ark!

Maybe I should reconsider. It might take a bit too long to include every creature, and besides, where to I draw the line? Do I mention fleas, dust mites, and tiny microbes? No, instead we’ll only do one visible animal per letter:

Aardvark — always has to be first on any animal list (not unlike the person who wants to be listed last in the New York phone directory by legally changing their name to Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzyxnski).
Buffalo — a large bovine known for its tasty wings.
Chimpanzee — I could never figure out why Tarzan’s pet primate was named after another C animal — Cheetah. That name became so ingrained in my mind, that I can never associate cheetah with swiftness; all I ever think of is a comic-relief ape.
Dingo — immortalized in the children's song, There was an Aussie had a dog and dingo was its name-o.
Elephant seal — this is one BIG ugly pinniped!

Just another day in the life of an elephant seal

Flamingo — also the name of a variation of Bingo, wherein frustrated players take a match to their losing cards.
Gorilla  — a large ape known to occasionally scale New York skyscrapers.
Hippopatomus — apparently one of the more dangerous animals in Africa. I don’t doubt it. Honestly, I once saw a documentary which showed a baby hippo trotting across the snouts of crocodiles in some river. The crocs just let the little guy strut on his merry way — for they could see the hippopatomus mom just a few yards off with her head halfway out of the water; her steely eyes focused on them.
Impala — a swift African antelope, not a Chevy.

The classic 1961 African Antelope

Jaguar  — a South American panther, not a British car.
Komodo Dragon — a large reptile, not a lengthy robe. Nor is it a rock band.
Llama — after seeing all of those clips from America's Funniest Home Videos, why would anyone stand near a llama?
Mandrill — in the name of equal rights, this monkey shall henceforth be called a Persondrill.
Newt — a reptile, not a Republican.
Orangutan — my favorite of the primates. They can give you this smirky look, as if they know they’re about to do something funny. It’s like “OK, good. You’re watching. See what I’m about to do now." It doesn’t even matter if they do anything at all. Just that look cracks me up.

Platypus — somewhere along the evolutionary process, this creature was on vacation.
Quail — let me say this regarding you mister quail, you’re no Jack Kennedy.
Rhinoserous Rinhoceros Rhinocerous — a difficult word to spell.
Swan — a heavenly bird that inspired some heavenly music.
Tasmanian Devil — a marsupial, not Errol Flynn.

Unicorn — No? Not a real animal? Dammit. Then we’ll have to go with Uakari  (wah-kahr-ee), another monkey.

Vulture — is it any wonder that Saint-Saëns did not compose a song about this bird?
Wildebeest — no gnus are good gnus.
X-ray Tetra —  and you thought I wouldn't find an X animal.
Yak — a large talkative bovine.
Zebu — known mainly for being alphabetically listed after Zebra.


And there you have it folks; from Aardvarks to Zebus, from Aaron to Zurishaddai, from Alpha to Zulu, from Apples to Zinfandel grapes, from Animals to Zombies (from Eric Burden to Rod Argent?), we’ve witnessed it all in this amusing and zany blogging challenge. I hope everyone had as much fun (?) as I did.

a, b, c, d, e, f, g, 
h, i, j, k, elemenopee, 
q, r, s, t, u, v, 
w, x, y and z,
Now I’m done the A to Z challenge,
This is how my blog posts shall end. 
(OK, so it’s not a perfect rhyme. But I don’t care, I’m done!)