A friend in Saint Paul, MN asked me if I had seen the meerkats in Roundhay Park, Leeds. I had to confess, they were news to me, I had not visted Tropical World set in Roundhay Park in many years.
So I visted the park and took some photographs of my visit for the Leeds photo daily, including the photo shown above. The meerkats are behind a perspex? screen, so the photo is not as clear as most of the photography on this blog.
This is a picture of the building that houses Tropical World, home to the Meerkats of Leeds.
There are Butterflies, Meerkats, Parrots, Iguanas, Lemurs and even a variety of crocodile within this building.
Yesterday I finally caught up with the Leeds Roller Dolls who were hosts to the Birmingham Blitz Dames here in Leeds at the Sports Hall, Leeds University. I had no real idea what to expect my only experience of roller derby being a viewing of the movie Whip It. It was faster than I thought and Leeds Roller Dolls were gracious hosts. When I have sorted through the photographs I took, I shall post several here on the Leeds Daily Photo.
This photo shows a new arrival at Tropical World here in Leeds, this is a Morelet crocodile.
This Morelet crocodile is one of several that are newly installed in there new home at Roundhay Park in North Leeds. These crocodiles are around two years old and about two feet long and when fully grown they will be around 10 feet in length.
Morelet’s crocodile also known as the Mexican crocodile are freshwater crocodiles native to areas of Mexico, Belize and Guatemala. The Morelet crocodile is an Endangered species and these babies were given by the Cotswold Wildlife Park in Oxfordshire.
The Cotswold Wildlife Park were the first in the UK to breed Morelet crocodiles in 2007 and at that time it was the only place in the UK that these rare crocodilians could be seen by the public. I grew up quite near to the Park and my younger sister had a Saturday job there.
Tropical World, Leeds is also home to a small colony of Meerkats.
Leedsdailyphoto.com 