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Verreaux's eagle

That chuck-chuck-chuck noise from the chopper drills your forehead. Those dumplings and chicken from last night were wonderful, but this flight is nothing like the plane! Your body is just recovering its natural shape after several hours sitting in the plane, but the noise and the movement from the chopper is trying to make you fizz out that dinner like a shaken soda. "I hope, that park worths this" goes through your thoughts you can barely listen inside your head, when the fog and clouds dispell. The Thawed Out Park stands right in front of you! It's just like the map you recieved at your post days ago and that now you keep at your pocket buried below that thick jacket. Too late you noticed that it might be just useless as you are getting a guided tour from the zoo manager itself. After a few minutes, the loud torture device finally lands and releases you from its paws. The first thing you listen when your ears quit buzzing is a sutile "Nice to lead you here. Now, I must leave!" from that person who met you at the airport. Is the only thing you remember hearing from that mouth since the "Greetings. Mr. Abbott sent me after you today" at the arrivals hall. Meters away, you notice a camping and a lady with a speaker, pointing that "All the park customers must gather around the zoo entrance within ten minutes before the inauguration speech". "What? Is this the park opening? I didn't know!" You bury your feet in the snow as you approach to the staff member, but she comes right towards your way as soon as she notices your presence. - Oh, right! - says she - You must be Mr. Abbott's special guest! Come with me, please. Make yourself confortable with us! She puts a hanging card around your neck. It displays the park's logo and your name next to "staff member". - With this, you'll have full access to our facilities. Feel free to walk across the zoo entrance. Just wait next to the information booths. You'll meet Mr. Abbott right there after the speech. You'll enjoy the trip. I bet! Have a nice day! As you walk the path right to the zoo entrance, you notice that you were te only one who arrived on the chopper. The customers from the camping aren't that jazzy, like the people who you tought had to pay for the zoo entrance. The park lends its welcome to you with lots of flowers and an arch series, one of them is like a giant ice cube. You notice why this first park section is called Enchanted Forest: It looks like some garden from a pricess castle! There are also unicorn statues, which gives the aura of a fairy tale! A voice comes upstairs the ice bridge. A man with another speaker calls the customers to come inside the zoo. Meanwhile they reach your place, from the other side of the road, a second group comes the same way. You catch in sight a group of about two tens of people wearing lab coats, who are in their way next to a second group of at least half that big. This second team wears wide hats and yellow jackets. When they're close enough, you spot the Thawed Out Park's logo garnishing their chests at the left, right above their hearts. They quit advancing when they reach both sides of the bridge. Among the team, you find the staff member from the chopper who met you at Tribhuvan Airport. Only then, you notice you're surrounded by the other guests and a third team of staff. You notice they're the tour guide team because the speaker girl wears the same cap as the others. Few eternal silent seconds pass before the guy with the speaker up there says "Now, please welcome Mr. Abbott. The zoo manager!". A sea of claps floods the quiet air of the Himalaya. It reminds you a bit the chopper sound. The guy says something that goes unheard beneath the applause. Then, he lends the speaker to Luca. You imagined him standing there with a tuxedo, some plain coloured tie and well polished shoes. His outfit is besides fully casual. The only garment he's wearing and you tought he would is, of course, a face mask. He holds the speaker with his left hand as he uses the right one making a sign in order to silent the audience. Then, he starts the speech: - Hi, everyone! Nice to see you in the right time and place on this cold morning! Today, you'll meet a Conservation Area that will change the world's vision about preservation of species. Welcome and behold the Thawed Out Park, where enormous astonishments await for you all! - a second applause borns from the customers hands. This time, you take part of it. - And now, before starting the tour, where my staff will make you feel like at your own homes, a small announcement. You'll find this park has no massive atracttions like other zoos. This is because this park focuses on the reintroduction of species and their welfare, not in people amusement. Our resources resulted in the best built enviroment at our 50 exhibits, making them the closest for the ancient biomes as far we actually know. I appreciate your understanding. But hey! That's not a weak point against the park! You'll enjoy every park hotspot! I bet! - a last applause takes place before the last Abbott's indication. He speaks in the middle of the flatter, merging his words with the cheering - Go and start your trip! Staff will serve all of your requirements! Have a nice day! Luca arises between the everywhere walking people as they disband. He's running like a little child having his best playtime ever! - Did you think I may forget my special guest today? - jokes he as comes closer - I told my staff to not interfere with us. Indeed, my words were "don't bother me unless the park catches fire!" Hahaha! How was the trip? Did you like Kathmandu and nepalese food? - you agree with your head - Great! I hope you fully restored your energies! Are you ready for the biggest park you'll ever visit? For sure, you've already noticed why this is the Enchanted Forest section. And what kind of mythical species dwell at these kind of places? Unicorns, of course! Naturally, real unicorns never existed, or not as art depicts them. So, how are the Thawed Our Park's unicorns? These are ancient rhinos. At this side of the Enchanted Forest, we have the Elasmotherium, also known as "the siberian unicorn". Some researchers stated that real Elasmotherium didn't have those massive horns. The ones we restored had them! Speculations made about Elasmotherium horns depend on the studied species. This one might be a different one! - The second one is not an actual unicorn, as it has TWO horns! It's the Coelodonta, also known as wolly rhino. You'll notice something weird about these pals! Their horns aren't round like those from Elasmotherium nor the actual rhinos'. Their front horn is flattened like a knife! This seems to be useful as some kind of tool in order to dig and search for grass below the snow! What a curious way to search for their food! Those unicorn statues stands to remind us that mythical beasts perhaps existed, but sure not as we tought! - Come across the bridge, just behind the Yeti statue! We have freeze themed souveinrs you may carry back home, so you can show off about how you were at the Thawed Out Park first day! The Enchanted Forest is not over yet! - Here, we have some other magical creatures, but not the way you think! Our third and fourth exhibits are for pig-like ancient animals! You may think "Of course! Some people think that unicorns were hogs like those with their teeth protruding throughout their snouts!". Weeeeell, yes and no. One of the best known magical castles, and the one I like the most, is that from Harry Potter's books. You may not know, but it has pigs in its name! Do you remember? Hog-Warts? Wart-hogs? Do you notice? Hahaha! At the left from the souvenir store, a family of Metridiochoerus is having a rest. Maybe, the modern warthogs won the evolution race against Metridiochoerus because warthogs had less nutritional requirements. That's the actual theory. With their research program, we are going to confirm or refuse that statement! - The one on the right side is Entelodon. Yes! I know! Entelodon is not an actual ancestor of modern pigs nor hogs! Their true relationship is quite controversial. Brought back to life, Entelodon looks pretty weird! Don't you think? Those thin straw like legs don't seem able to bear that bulky body! Although, you'll find them pretty agile! Also, Entelodon have the four types of teeth, just like actual pigs and humans! That's what toke us to feed them in an omnivorous way! However, they seem to like the meat chow the most! - From this point, the Thawed Out Park has several paths! We are now at the Feeding Center hotspot! You'll see... As the development was going on and the park got bigger every day, we noticed that the food costs grew tremendously! Mostly due the transport. So, we built a factory! Here, our guests may learn how the food is made. Also, we have some options of fast food for our guests! - At the Feeding Center, there are three species. These are ancient relatives of some species that went domesticated and nowadays their descendants inhabits in our barns. The first one is some that several teams tried to restore for decades. The cattle precursor, who went extinct as soon as 400 years ago: the Aurochs itself! Aurochs is one of the most often depicted animals on cave paintings. Ancient humans domesticated Aurochs at Eurasia at least two times in history! - Follow this way! Just don't take the bridge! Not yet! At the other side, you'll find one of the three electric gates! What does inhabit on the other side of them? You'll figure it out later! Below the bridge, we have the Titanotylopus who is the heaviest of all the camelids ever known! The name holds it: Their feet had pads, just like modern camels. But every modern camel species are fully domesticated. None of them is actually wild! And, unlike cattle and Aurochs, the wild species from which camels got domesticated is not known to date! This species management may enlighten us about the past of the camels! - This is the Globe Bush Yard! Here, the customers may take a sit at our benches and take their meal surrounded by one of the smallest species we got! The Eohippus is, as the name suggests, an ancestor of modern horses. But not as recent as Aurochs or Titanotylopus! Eohippus is maybe the earliest from all the evolution tree of equids! As you should know, wild horses like tarpan are also extinct. Mustangs horses are feral. You know, domestic animals who broke free and now they roam the wild. It may sound pretty romantic, but it is not that neat! We also thought that Przewalski horses were feral, but recent studies suggest that they are wild species. We'll also clarify several things about the horses evolution with this species program! - As I already told, we may go different ways from the Feeding Center. Let's take the one at the right first! These are the Antlers Hanging Planters. The name is a sort of tongue twister, just like the path is kinda tricked! We have five species around the planters. All of them have different kind of horns! You're gonna meet them! Just do'nt get hypnotized by the swirling path! - The first of these neighbours are some of the most magnificent antlers the world has ever seen! On the left, we got a family of Eucladoceros . These cervids had several branches at their huge horns! That gave them the name of "Bush antlered deer". Each horn had at leas a dozen of tips! That sounds pretty amazing! Doesn't it? On the counter side, their skulls weren't that evolved. Several people think about those antlers that big were pointlessly massive and their went extinct due to them being an impediment when feeding or hiding from predators. Modern deers moult their antlers every year, so the deer program will unveil if that theory might be the actual cause of their extinction! - On the right side, the other and the biggest antler ever belongs to the Megaloceros, better known as irish elk! Megaloceros' antlers weren't that branchy like Eucladoceros', but they were way heavier and massive! From branch tip to branch tip, the Megaloceros' antlers measure more than 3 meters long! I mentioned earlier that deers lose and develope new antlers every year for the breeding season. That makes us question what for nutritional need had these deers in order to grow such big antlers! If the uptake came from their body reservoir instead diet, that may result in a weak body, not strong enough to flee from predators or fight against other males if they did! - Remember not to take that bridge yet! The horns you're gonna watch next are quite different to those from Eucladoceros and Megaloceros. One of my favorite moments in the palaeontology is when this animal was finally reclasified as an ancient giraffe after being jumping between taxa! I'm talking about the Sivatherium whose name comes from the hindi destruction deity Shiva. Their horns were bony and had skin covering, just like those from modern giraffes and okapies! These are named ossicones. And, like those animals, we found that Sivaterium fed using a strong tongue! - Here, on the last corner of the Antlers Hanging Planters, you'll notice something quite new. We dare to merge two species on the same exhibit just to know if they coexist without troubles. We got pretty nice results! The first one is Synthetoceras which is not an actual deer like Megaloceros or Eucladoceros. Male Synthetoceras also had a bony "v" shaped horn on their snout. These resulted to live together well with Ceratogaulus which is also a horned animal. But it's a rodent! Ceratogaulus horns seems to work as a defense against predators, acting like some kind of lid for their burrows, turning difficult the chasing of these rodents. - Are you enjoying the Thawed Out Park? I bet you do! Are you feeling tired yet? Wanna take a break? You walk below the shadow of the observation areas as you look at the gardens. The antlers from the animals that are close or far seems to merge with the plants branches, giving the gardens a living aura. THIS look like actual enchanted woods! Luca's voice is like some musical echo playing in the background, breaking the ice from the Himalaya. - Take a break if you like! Go to restroom if you need it. Get some nachos from the stand and take a look at the autumn garden. They usually do not allow you enter with food, but with that card on your neck, you can easily do it! Just be careful and do not drop cheese on the plants! Meet me at the Globe Bush when you are ready, because this is just the begining of the tour!

Nilgiri tahr

Kashmir stag

Western tragopan

Snow Sheep

Himalayan marmot

Himalayan brown bears

Tibetan blue bears