... last year's trip had called for a stop at the san francisco zoo to see the penguins, but time constraints resulted in one of those "we can do this, or that, but not both this and that" situations, so we had to take a pass ... this year we made up for it by spending almost an hour watching the the critters in their superb habitat at the st. louis zoo ... (read that, "brrrrrrrrrr," since the exhibit is clearly designed for the comfort of the birds) ... these are aptenodytes forsteri, emperor penguins, the largest and heaviest of all the penguins ... they can dive to over 1,800 feet in search of food, are able to regulate their internal core body temperature even when the thermometer reads -57F, and, sadly, due to the effects of global climate change, are probably one of the species which will be close to extinction by the turn of the century ...
NIKON D200 & OLYMPUS E-PL1